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A BAD LOT. 

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A NOVEL 


BY 


MES. LOVETT CAMEEOK 

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AUTHOR OF 

“IN A GRASS COUNTRY,” “JACK’S SECRET,” “A SISTER’S SIN,” “A DAUGHTER’S 
HEART,” “A bachelor’s BRIDAL,” ETC., ETC. 


“Give a dog a bad name — and hang him!” 

Old Proverb. 





J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1894 . 





Copyright, 1893 and 1894, 

BY 

J. B. Lippincott Company. 


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Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER 1. pagb 

One Evening in August 7 

CHAPTER II. 

The Yoice of the Tempter 16 

CHAPTER III. 

A Child in Years, a Woman in Strength 25 

CHAPTER lY. 

Five Years Later 34 

CHAPTER Y. 

The Forresters of Marshlands 43 

CHAPTER YI. 

Nell’s New Lover 62 

CHAPTER YII. 

A Club Dinner 61 

CHAPTER YIII. 

"The Little Rift Within the Lute” 71 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Wicked Old Woman in Wimpole Street .... 81 

CHAPTER X. 

The First Lines of the Romance 90 

CHAPTER XI. 

Miss Yincent’s Painted Cushion 100 


3 


4 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTEK XIL page 

Across Hydb Park 110 

CHAPTER XIIl. 

“I AM Going to Take Care of You” 121 

CHAPTER XIV. 

How THE “Romance” was Continued 131 

CHAPTER XY. 

Mrs. Hartwood Again 140 

CHAPTER XVI. 

A Revelation 149 

CHAPTER XVI 1. 

Cecil’s Bank Notes 156 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Evil Report 166 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Lady Forrester Tells Lies — 176 

CHAPTER XX. 

— And Has Told Them Badly 185 

CHAPTER XXL 

Ida Vincent is Disappointed 196 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Christmas Joys 204 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

The First Act 213 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Act the Second 222 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Days op Calm 229 


CONTENTS. 


5 


CHAPTEK XXYL 

The Outbreak of the Storm 238 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

“All is Over” 247 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

“Et Apres Cela le Deluge 1” 257 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Lady Forrester’s Forlorn Hope 264 

CHAPTER XXX. 

The Last of Poor “ Gordie” 273 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

The Sisters Part Company 284 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

A Notice in the “Times.” 2G2 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Amongst the Alps 299 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

A Notice to Quit 308 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

Up IN THE Beech Woods 319 

CHAPTER XXXVL 

A Garden of Roses 330 












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A BAD LOT. 


CHAPTER I. 

ONE EVENING IN AUGUST. 

I CANNOT rightly remember now whether it was at 
the “ Fisheries” or the “ Healtheries” or the “ Colinder- 
ies” as they used to be called ; but I know that it was 
about five or six years ago, at one or other of those 
popular exhibitions, which, as we all remember, were 
held for several years in succession in the old Horticul- 
tural Gardens, upon the site now occupied by the Im- 
perial Institute. 

It was an oppressively hot night at the end of August. 
“ Everybody” was out of town, and London was said to 
be empty; nevertheless, there were some three or four 
thousand persons thronging the brilliantly-illuminated 
gardens, promenading in dense masses up and down the 
broad terraces, and crowding round the raised-kiosks on 
either side, where two excellent bands played alter- 
nately, either popular airs or selections from well-known 
operas, such as evoked repeated and enthusiastic ap- 
plause from the audience. 

Although this audience could not exactly be said to 
be composed of the upper ten, it was all the same a 
highly attentive and appreciative one. 

The people were all respectable and well-dressed — ^they 
moved about in a quiet and orderly manner, and seemed 
to enjoy the open air and the music thoroughly. There 
were family groups, fathers and mothers with their chil- 
dren, parties of friends who had met by appointment, 
couples of lovers arm-in-arm, knots of neatly-dressed 
young women with their attendant swains, who strolled 

7 


8 


A BAD LOT. 


up and down laughing and talking merrily together, 
whilst not unfrequently the red coat of “ Tommy At- 
kins,” usually with a blushing sweetheart upon his arm, 
enlivened the scene with a flash of the familiar scarlet. 

The one thing that was not common amongst the 
seething crowd of pleasure-seekers was the broad white 
shirt-front of the gentleman in evening dress. In the 
months of August and September such a sight had be- 
come rare — that was perhaps why so many heads were 
turned to look back at Colonel Yane Darley, as he 
sauntered down the centre walk with a slight, half- 
grown girl hanging on to his arm. 

He was a tall, well-made man, broad-shouldered and 
lean flanked, whose forty years had made but little dif- 
ference in his good looks ; his faultlessly-made clothes 
sat easily upon his upright figure, and there was about 
him altogether that indescribable air of careless grace 
which denotes the man of the world who is accustomed 
to good society. 

Yet handsome as he undoubtedly was — and his well- 
featured face was one which women were wont to turn 
and look at twice — that face could not by any possibility 
be called a good one. Dissipation and a certain “ devil- 
may-care” recklessness were written upon every line of 
it ; there was a cold cynicism on the close curves of the 
well-shaped mouth, and a perpetual mocking disbelief 
lurking in the deep-set grey eyes. It was said of Yane 
Darley that he had lived every inch of his life “ twice 
over,” with the result that at forty he took all things in 
jest that he should have taken in earnest, and that, per 
contra^ where he should have been in jest he was too 
often in deadly earnest ; and when he was in earnest he 
was generally at his worst. 

Unfortunately, he was in earnest now. 

The girl who hung upon his arm, often winding both 
clinging hands around it, tripping with quick dancing 
footsteps to keep pace with the stride of his long legs, 
chattering volubly, glancing up incessantly into his face 
— was young enough to have been his daughter, but she 
was no relation to him at all ; she was only the daughter 
of an old friend. 

She was still a mere child. As a matter of fact, her 


ONE EVENING IN AUGUST. 


9 


sixteenth birthday was only last week, her skirts were 
above her ankles, her thick bronze-tinted hair, tied back 
from her ears with a blue ribbon, hung down in a heavy 
plait to her waist ; whilst the wide straw hat, trimmed 
with daisies, and the plain little tweed frock and jacket 
were entirely childish in their simplicit3^ 

But the face, full of delight and animation, that was 
turned up so eagerly to his, gave even now the promise 
of rare and exceptional beauty. The girl’s eyes shone 
like stars, her mobile features were exquisitely chiselled, 
the nose was fine and slender, the scarlet lips full and 
curved, whilst her complexion resembled the delicate 
colouring of the inner petals of the wild rose. Her 
figure, of course, was slight and unformed, the figure 
of a child who has not done growing; yet even here 
there was a slender uprightness, a lissome lightness of 
movement, which foretold future development of grace 
and symmetry. 

And all the time she talked and talked — of the music, 
the passers-by, the coloured lamps amongst the trees, the 
fountains that shot up white against the dark sky be- 
yond, and that were lit up incessantly by bright flashes 
of varying colours — red and blue and green and golden. 
Ever^’thing about her called forth rapturous exclama- 
tions of delight from her chattering lips. 

She was in radiantly high spirits. He spoke but little, 
but he listened to her attentively, and he watched her 
keenly out of his deep-set eyes. 

“And you are reall}^ enjoying it, Hell?” 

“ Oh, so much ! so much !” she answered, with a little 
gasp in her breath. “ It is like fairy-land. I never be- 
lieved there could be any place so gay and delightful as 
this in horrid, dreary old London. It was so good of 
you to think of me, to bring me here — to give me such 
a happy evening !” and her fingers tightened gratefully 
on his arm. 

How deliciously, perilously lovely she was. The world 
might be “ well lost” indeed for such a fresh, sweet flower 
as this I 

There comes a time when a man who has knocked 
about the world a great deal, becomes nauseated and 
disgusted with all the maturer charms of experienced 


10 


A BAD LOT. 


womanhood, when he yearns for the freshness of an un- 
spoilt maiden, as eagerly as one in a burning fever longs 
for a breeze of pure air or a draught of clear cold water. 

“ Is it so very dreary at your grandmother’s, then ?” 
he asked. 

“Oh dreadful! You have no idea how dull granny’s 
house is I It is like the tomb — so quiet — so still — no one 
comes or goes, only the servants, who are nearly as old 
as she is. There is not a book to read, not even a flower 
upon the tables, and, outside, only the opposite houses 
all shuttered up and empty to look at and the trades- 
men’s carts rattling down the deserted street. I really 
think I should have died of it if I had not met you, 
Colonel Darley. How lucky it was ; the sort of aston- 
ishing chance that hardly ever happens to one — was it 
not?” 

“ It was a horrid shame to send you to stay with your 
grandmother at this time of the year,” said Darley, 
passing on in silence the discussion of the “chance” 
which surprised her so much and which possibly was 
less of a chance than she supposed. 

“Well, you see there was nobody else to go, and 
Granny wrote about it, and papa thought she might bo 
offended if none of us went to see her this summer ; ho 
is always afraid of her leaving her money to Uncle Bob, 
you know,” added Nell naively. 

Darley gave a short contemptuous laugh. 

“ Has he left her with any to leave, do you suppose ?” 

“ Oh, I think so. Papa only managed to borrow 
twenty pounds from her the last time ; he thinks that 
was because none of us have been to see her since 
Christmas. She is easily offended, and she fancies that 
we have neglected her, and she wrote such a nasty letter. 
Papa said somebody must go. Dottie flatly refused; 
she sa^^s Granny starved her last time, and you know 
what Millie is.” 

“And so they made a victim of you? Poor little 
Nell I” 

“ Well, I didn’t think I should mind it so much. I 
offered to come. But then I had never been to London 
before. If I had known what a dull dreary place it was 
I shouldn’t have wanted to see it.” 


ONE EVENING IN AVGUST. H 

“ That is because you have only seen it at this time 
of the year. Yet you are not bored to-night ?” 

“ To-night I Oh no ! To-night everything is heavenly ! 
Look at the lights — the people — how happy every one 
is ! Listen to that lovely music ! Besides,”, added the 
child with sweet unconscious flattery, “ besides, you are 
with me ! You are the magician who has turned my 
desert into fairy-land for me ! Since I met you yesterday 
I have come back to life.” 

For a moment he was silent. He could not trust 
himself to speak, his heart was beating so strangely. 

“ Tell me,” he said presently, “ how are you all getting 
on at home ?” 

“ Oh ! pretty much as usual. Papa is always in difli- 
culties, you know, and the servants’ wages are always 
overdue, and then the tradesmen come up and bother 
for their money — there seems always some fuss about 
money going on.” 

“ You are still as poor as ever at Marshlands, then ?” 

Hell sighed. She had been used to money troubles 
from her cradle, they did not come as anything new to 
her. 

“ Yes. One doesn’t often get richer, I suppose,” she 
said. 

A moment of silence ; the string band was playing 
the “ Blue Danube” waltz — it had not gone out of fash- 
ion then — the swinging rhythm floated on the cool night 
air towards them, hundreds of coloured lamps twinkled 
gaily in long festoons against the darkness, the fountains 
plashed their white foam below, the voices of the mov- 
ing crowds were silent, only the subdued crush of their 
footsteps upon the gravel made an undercurrent of 
sound like the hushed murmur of the waves along the 
shingle. All her life long Hell Forrester remembered 
the strange scene — half darkness, half lurid light — and 
the waltz that rose and fell in fitful cadences on the 
throbbing air. 

“Would you not like to be rich. Hell?” murmured 
Colonel Barley’s voice in her ear. “ To have smart 
clothes and diamonds — to have a carriage of your very 
own — a yacht to take you across the sea— a horse to 
carry you across country ?” 


12 


A BAD LOT. 


Her ringing childish laughter answered him. 

“ Let me wish for the moon at once,” she cried mer- 
rily, “or Windsor Castle and. the Queen’s crown and 
sceptre! Of course I wish that we were rich. How 
nice it would be to have all those lovely things you speak 
of, and not to hear anything more about the butcher’s 
bill and the rates that papa never has got the money 
for. But one might as well wish for the Millennium at 
once, and I don’t suppose all the money Granny might 
leave papa, even if she leaves it all to him and none to 
Uncle Bob, would do more than just pay the bills owing 
to the tradesmen for two years back.” 

“ 1 was not thinking of your father, Hell. I was 
thinking of you only. You might become rich I” 

She shook her head. 

“ Earn money, you mean ? Ho, I couldn’t I I am too 
stupid. I can do nothing. I can’t paint or sing. I 
could never write a book if I tried ever so hard. I 
thought once I might go on the stage, but papa shouted 
at me when I said so. He said he would rather see me 
in my coffin. I wonder why.” 

“ Is there not another way in which girls who are 
young and beautiful can become rich, Hell ?” 

She was silent for a moment, puzzling over it to her- 
self Then she laughed. 

“ Oh, of course I You mean that they can marry rich 
men ! How stupid of me not to think of that 1 Why 
don’t Lottie and Millie marry, I wonder ? But I don’t 
believe anybody has ever asked them, and yet I do 
think Lottie the most beautiful girl in the world, don’t 
you ?” 

“ Yes. She is handsome,” he assented. 

“ How I come to think of it, it certainly is extraor- 
dinary that nobody should want to marry my sisters,” 
continued Hell. “ But you see we don’t know very 
many people. I suppose it is because we are so poor 
hardly anybody seems to come and see us. Yet the 
girls got plenty of partners, I know, when they went to 
the hunt ball last winter. They told me they danced all 
night, and some of the gentlemen came to call after- 
wards, but I don’t believe any of them wanted to marry 
them. I wonder why that is ?” 


ONE EVENING IN AUGUST. 


13 


Her innoeence was so thoroughly genuine that he was 
at a loss how to answer her. She had missed his mean- 
ing altogether. 

He had not been thinking of her elder sisters ; and if 
Gordon Forrester’s daughter did not understand why 
few of the county people called at Marshlands, and why 
none of the stray men her sisters picked up at the pub- 
lic balls desired to become their husbands, why, it was 
scarcely possible to him to enlighten her. 

So all he said by way of answer was : 

“ Well, you will come down to Erith and look at my 
yacht to-morrow, won’t you ?” 

“ Do you really mean it ? How delightful ! How kind 
you are. I have never seen a yacht in my life, you 
know. I wonder,” with a sudden trouble on her clear 
face, “ I wonder if I dare ask Granny for some money 
to take me down ? Do you think I shall get her to give 
it to me ?” 

“We won’t trouble her,” he answered smiling. “I 
shall take you ; you will be my guest. You must meet 
me at the end of Wimpole Street to-morrow morning at 
ten o’clock. I shall be waiting for you in a hansom ; we 
will spend a long, happy day together. That is settled, 
is it not, Nell?” 

She looked a little doubtful. 

“ Am I to tell Granny that I am going with you ?” 

“Lady Forrester won’t care where you go, so long as 
she has not got to put her hand in her pocket to pay for 
you,” laughed Darley. “ No, don’t tell her that you are 
going with me — tell her some friends invited you ; she 
won’t ask their names.” 

Just then a couple arm-in-arm passed close by them in 
the crowd — a country clergyman and his wife. They 
were homely, middle-aged people, who had run up to 
town for a few days for shopping and business, and who 
had drifted somehow into the illuminated gardens to 
spend the warm summer evening. 

“ Good gracious, John !” exclaimed the lady below her 
breath after they had gone by ; “ did you see who that 
was?” 

“ Who, my dear? No, I did not see any one. Who 
was it ?” 


2 


14 


A BAD LOT. 


“ It was Nell Forrester, and she was with that dread- 
ful Colonel Darley !” 

“iVeZZ — Nell Forrester!” repeated Mr. Hartwood in- 
credulously ; “ that child ! Impossible, Mary ! Why, 
she went to stay with her grandmother ; Forrester told 
me.” 

“ That is it, then,” said Mrs. Hartwood with decision. 
“ You may depend upon it she is out on the sly — hood- 
winked the poor old lady, I daresay.” 

‘‘ But Colonel Darley^ my love, did you say was with 
her — that unprincipled fellow? Nell is a mere child; 
it cannot have been Colonel Darley with her.” 

“ I tell you I saw them both plainly ; the Bengal 
light shone out just as we passed and lit up both their 
faces. She was hanging on to his arm as if they had 
been lovers.” 

“How shocking! If it had been Camilla or Dora, 
now, I should not have wondered ; but little Nell ! I 
hoped better things of that child. Ever since she came 
to my confirmation classes last year I have had hopes of 
her — she seemed so modest and attentive. Oh, Mary, 
let us turn back and try and find her ; you might get 
her to come away with us. Let us turn back.” 

“Not for the world!” said Mrs. Hartwood, pinching 
her lips together priml}^ and throwing up her chin in a 
way to which the Hev. John Hartwood was not unac- 
customed. “ I will not have you mix yourself up with 
those Forresters — they are a bad lot, all of them ! It 
is dreadful enough having such people in the parish at 
all, but we need not be dragged into their disreputable 
affairs.” 

“ But, my love, did not Christ come into the world to 
bring sinners into His fold? Surely a minister of the 
gospel should seek to save the souls of those under his 
charge.” 

“ You shall not go after the souls of those Forresters, 
I tell you !” cried the clergyman’s wife with asperity. 
“ To begin with, I don’t believe they have got any souls 
at all to speak of — they are had, every one of them ! 
it is in the blood! Those girls will get into trouble, 
every one of them. Eemember their wretched mother. 
What can you expect from the children of that miser- 


ONE EVENING IN AUGUST. 15 

able woman ? ‘ What’s bred in the bone won’t out of 
the flesh.’ ” 

“ Yet, if I could save poor little Nell,” sighed the more 
tender-hearted clergyman regretfully. 

“ She is past saving already if she is going about at 
night alone with such a man as Colonel Yane Darley. 
Doesn’t everybody know that he has got a wife alive 
somewhere in America? How can such a man be a re- 
spectable or safe companion for a young girl to go about 
with alone ? Besides, recollect his character ! A liber- 
tine ! a profligate ! whom no decent parents would allow 
to enter their house. I consider Nell Forrester must be 
lost already, to be seen with such a man !” 

And so the good and virtuous woman, whom no temp- 
tation had ever assailed, took her husband home to their 
lodgings, congratulating herself on her firmness in having 
kept him uncontaminated and unsullied by contact with 
vice, as displayed by little Nell Forrester. 

“ He would have done no good by interfering,” she 
thought, “and he would only have got himself mixed 
up with those disreputable Forresters for nothing. 
Somebody might have seen us talking to them — it would 
make a scandal in the parish !” 

But the Eeverend John Hartwood lay awake long 
into the night, tossing restlessly to and fro upon his 
pillow. 

“Poor little Nell, so young, so pretty!” he thought; 
“I wish Mary had allowed me to go back and speak to 
her. I don’t believe there is any harm in her, nor in 
her sisters either, for that matter, but if all the good 
women turn their backs on those poor girls, how can 
an^'body expect them to turn out well, with their 
mother’s bad name clinging to them, and only their 
foolish father to look after them ? I wonder why real 
good charitable women like my Mary, who visit the 
poor and the needy, and would work their'fingers to the 
bone for a sick child or an old woman in the village, are 
so hard down on the women of their own class?” 

And there are many other people in the world far 
wiser than the Eeverend John Hartwood, vicar of 
Marshlands, who have wondered the same thing. 


16 


A BAD LOT 


CHAPTEE II. 

THE VOICE OF THE TEMPTER. 

The “Water Witch” spread her billowing sails to the 
freshening breeze, and danced lightly across the rippling 
blue water. The low shores trended away more and 
more indistinctly on either side of her, as the cutter 
sped swiftly away seawards down the broad estuary of 
the Thames. 

Tilbury and Gravesend were left behind, Southend 
and Shoeburyness hove in sight, and far away ahead the 
Nore light-ship hung faintly blue between the hazy dis- 
tance of the sky and sea. 

“ We shall make Sheerness to-day with this breeze, 
and the tide all in our favour,” said Parley. 

The girl sat by his side in a low deck chair, the crisp 
air had fanned her cheeks into a deeper rose, the salt 
spray dashed against her bright face, her long loosened 
hair fluttered like a mermaid’s veil about her shoulders, 
her eyes were sparkling and her lips were parted with 
sheer delight at the dancing motion. 

As he spoke she turned upon him a swift glance of 
regret, and then she took a battered silver watch out of 
her waist belt and looked at it with a half sigh. 

“ But there is the getting back again, remember. Oh, 
why do happy days come to an end so quickly ? already 
it is afternoon — three hours more and it will be time to 
go homewards.” 

“ Your watch gains, Nell.” 

“ Generally^ unless it loses,” she answered, laughing ; 
“although sometimes it varies the entertainment by 
stopping altogether. It was Camilla’s first watch, you 
see, and she used to take it to school with her, and what 
with over- windings, stirrings up with hair-pins, drop- 
pings into water basins, and chuckings at other girls’ 
heads, the poor thing hasn’t got many works left to 
speak of, I fancy. Still, I must be thankful for small 


THE VOICE OF THE TEMPTER. 17 

mercies, Colonel Darley, and being the youngest I in- 
herit all the cast olf rubbish of my elders.” 

He rose and left her side for a moment ; when he re- 
turned he carried a small parcel in his hand. 

“ Look here,” he said, sitting down again beside her, 
“I have got something for you, Hell. 1 noticed yester- 
day what a knocked about, worn-out old time-piece you 
had, and so I got you this.” 

He tossed a jeweller’s case into her lap. She opened 
it eagerly, and uttered a cry of delight. It contained a 
gold bangle, fitted with an exquisite miniature watch, 
set round with brilliants. 

“ For me ? really for me ?” she cried, with all the wild 
excitement of a child. “ Oh, how lovely ! how beauti- 
ful ! and it is to be my own ? Oh, it is almost too good 
to be true !” 

For a moment it looked as if she would have flung her 
arms round his neck in her rapture, but he drew back a 
little ; there were his men behind them. He would have 
been sorry if she had made any public exhibition of 
affection. It was not so that he coveted the first kiss 
from those sweet lips. 

“ Let me fasten it on to your arm,” he said gravely, 
and clasped the shining bracelet upon her wrist. 

“ How good you are to me,” she said in a lower voice 
and with dewy eyes ; ‘‘ how very good. Why are you 
so kind to me. Colonel Darley ?” 

His fingers that lingered still upon her round white 
arm trembled a little, as he answered without looking at 
her : 

“ I am not good to you, Hell — not good at all.” 

“ Oh !” with a soft, mocking laugh. “ If you are not 
good, I should like to know who is. Why do you do so 
much to please me and make me happy, then?” 

He bent his dark head until his lips were close to her 
ear. 

“ Can you not guess, child ?” 

She looked at him with questioning eyes and shook 
her head. 

“ It is — because I love you. Hell.” 

For the space of nearly five minutes there was a dead 
silence between them. 


2 * 


18 


A BAD LOT. 


She did not blush or look down, or tremble or draw 
back from him as an older girl would have done. She 
only looked away from him towards the ^^'ore, with eyes 
that saw nothing of the wide plain of twinkling water 
before them, and there was a little pucker of puzzled 
bewilderment between her brows. 

She was troubled ; she did not quite understand — that 
was all. Presently she looked back at him. His eyes 
were fixed upon her face, devouring every detail of her 
beauty, his heart was beating, every nerve within him 
was tense with emotion and quivered with suspense. In 
all his stormy life Yane Parley had never coveted any- 
thing so madly and passionately as he did this sixteen- 
year old maiden. 

“Do you mean,” she said slowly and thoughtfulljq as 
though working out some half-comprehended problem in 
her mind — “ do you mean — that you would like to marry 
me ?” 

And it was Colonel Parley then over whose face there 
rushed a wave of scorching colour, dyeing it deeply, 
darkly red, from brow to chin. Hever, perhaps, had so 
deep a sense of shame and abasement swept over him 
before. 

He bent his head. For a moment it seemed to him as 
if he must give it up — that he must be for once true to 
long-stifled better instincts, and resign all hopes of this 
girl whom he was seeking to injure so deeply, so con- 
vincing was the sentence from those innocent lips, the 
unsullied child candour that shone in those lovely ques- 
tioning eyes. 

■And then the tempter spoke — as he generally does 
take occasion to speak in these storm-tossed crises of our 
lives. 

“ I should be good to her, as good as if I were actually 
her husband. I should look upon her in very truth as 
my wife. And what a much better life she would lead 
with me than she would at Marshlands. What an ex- 
istence of grinding poverty would be her fate there ; 
and what chance is there for any of those girls, with the 
bad name of their mother clinging to them all ? Be- 
sides, who would want to marry a daughter of Gordon 
Forrester’s, who lives upon the money he borrows right 


THE VOICE OF THE TEMPTER. 19 

and left, and never pays back a sou ? to say nothing of 
that wretched creature, who is still alive somewhere, 
who was a ballet-dancer to begin with, and who only 
returned to her native gutter-mud when she bolted from 
her husband’s house with her groom. What chance has 
any one of those poor girls of marrying decently, for 
all their good looks, with such a record as that behind 
them ? I should be doing the child a good turn if I 
took her away from her miserable home before she 
learns the truth about her mother.” 

And then, instead of answering her words, he bent 
over her and spoke to her in a low, caressing voice. 

“Think of it, Kell, what a good time we should 
have! We would go right away from England — to 
Italy, to Greece, to Spain — wherever you would like. 
You often say you would like to travel ; and you should 
have everything on earth you fancied — plenty of pretty 
clothes and jewellery, and we would keep to the yacht 
all the summer weather, and when it grew cold we 
could winter in some warm southern place, and explore 
some new and lovely land. I think we should be happy 
together, little woman, for though I am so much older 
than you are, I am very, very fond of you, dear, and I 
think you care for me a little bit too, don’t you ?” 

“ Yes — I care,” she answered in a very low voice. 

“And I shall live only for you, my sweet love,” he 
went on, his hand closing softly over hers. “ My whole 
life shall be devoted to making you happy — to proving 
my gratitude.” 

But she did not understand him. 

“ I must have time,” she said, covering her face with 
her hands. “ I can’t understand it quite — that you, you 
should care in that way for me I — that you should think 
me worthy. It seems wonderful — like a dream or a 
fairy story. Oh!” turning to him piteously, “take 
me home now, that I may think — that I may try to 
understand.” 

She was pale now, pale and a little frightened. The 
passion in his face, although she was but half conscious 
of its meaning, filled her with a vague sense of alarm. 
He saw that she trembled, but possibly he scarcely com- 
prehended the extent of her absolute innocence and 


20 


A BAD LOT. 


ignorance. Yet he divined that it would be wiser not 
to press her too hardly now. 

He drew back from her, smiling kindly and reas- 
suringly. 

“ Of course I don’t want to hurry or startle you, dear 
child. You shall go home now and think it over quietly, 
and to-morrow I will come to the usual place near your 
house, and you shall come and meet me again, and you 
shall tell mo then whether you think you can care 
enough for an old chap like me to be willing to throw 
in your lot with mine.” And then he lifted his voice 
and shouted “ Put about !” to the men, and the cutter 
swung round to the helm and turned her bow towards 
the land once more. 

It took a couple of hours to beat up the river again 
to Erith, and during all that time Colonel Harley was 
wise enough to resume his ordinary manner of kind and 
almost fatherly interest towards his 3^oung guest. Little 
by little she recovered from the trouble which his words 
had caused her, and the laughter came back to her lips 
and the childish gaiety into her voice and eyes. They 
were so happy together, these two, such good friends, 
she thought. What, indeed, was there to alarm her 
about this old friend whom she had known in a way 
nearly all her life, but whom she had never seemed to 
care for so much and to get on with so well as in these 
last few most happy days. 

For this was not at all the first trip that Hell had 
taken on the “ Water Witch.” For three days running 
Colonel HarlejT- had taken her down to Erith, and she 
had spent the whole day on the yacht, returning late at 
night to her grandmother’s house, desperately tired and 
sleepy, but almost superhumanly happy. 

As to Lady Forrester, she bad not troubled herself to 
ask any questions about how her grandchild spent her 
time. She was a selfish and niggardly old woman, and 
she was secretly relieved that Hell should manage to 
amuse herself without putting her to any trouble or ex- 
pense. Dorothea and Millicent were like whirlwinds in 
the house; they always wanted new clothes when they 
came up to Wimpole Street, and Lady Forrester had 
been obliged to pay for them. And then they rushed 


THE VOICE OF THE TEMPTER. 


21 


about all over London in cabs, and left the man-servant 
to pay for them. But Nell wanted nothing and cost 
her nothing, and managed to amuse herself all the time, 
and never charged her with cab fares. Could anything 
be more satisfactory ? 

“ I like your youngest girl,” she wrote to her son ; 
“ she is a good child, and gives me no trouble. She suits 
me much better than her sisters ; she is not for ever 
ordering new clothes and sending in the bills to me, and 
borrowing my small change as they do. Nell does not 
seem to want money or to care about shops and finery. 
She has come across some friends — I really can’t re- 
member if she told me their names — but they have 
taken her about all this week — down into the country, 
she tells me, which is good for her, as London is very 
hot just now. They seem to like having her, and they 
pay all her expenses, which the Lord knows in these 
hard times I can’t afford to do ; so I ask no questions 
and let her do as she likes. Next week she says they 
will be gone, and then I will send her with Marshall to 
see the sights — the British Museum and the Tower and 
so on. I must say I like a girl who can find her own 
amusements and make her own friends.” But what 
those amusements and friends were like, it did not enter 
Lady Forrester’s head to inquire. 

It was an hour earlier than usual to-night when Nell 
got back to her grandmother’s house. She was not 
nearly so tired as she had been on the two previous 
days, but then, on the other hand, she was not nearly so 
happy. 

She was bewildered and troubled — all the foundations 
of her life seemed to be shaken, and she was a prey to 
a dozen conflicting emotions and uncertainties. And in 
addition to all this not unnatural agitation, something 
had happened on the way home from Erith which had 
apparently disturbed her companion far more than her- 
self, and which had totally, and to her quite unaccount- 
ably, spoilt the happiness of their last hour together. 

It was just as they were getting into the train at 
Erith. Nell had jumped into a first-class carriage, and 
Barley was proceeding to follow her, when he uttered 
an exclamation of annoyance, caught hold of her hand 


22 


A BAD LOT. 


and dragged her out again. Two people, a lady and a 
gentleman, already occupied the two seats on the further 
side of the carriage. 

“Come to another carriage,” Darley whispered to her, 
drawing her away quickly down the platform. “ Did 
you not see those people, Nell ? It was that spiteful- 
tongued parson’s wife with her husband.” 

“ What, the Hartwoods !” cried Nell in astonishment. 
“ Oh ! I wish I had seen them. Colonel Darley. Mr. 
Hartwood has been so awfully kind to me. Why 
should we not have got into the carriage where they 
were ?” 

“ What, and set every tongue wagging about us down 
at Marshlands !” he answered. 

“ Why should their tongues wag ?” said Nell in sur- 
prise. “ There is nothing wonderful, is there, about us ? 
It certainly is funny our meeting them down here all 
this way from home; but now 1 remember, Mr. Hart- 
wood’s brother lives at Gravesend, and I suppose they 
have been down to see him I wish I could have 
spoken to them and asked them when they are going 
home.” 

But Colonel Darley did not echo this simple and 
ignorant wish. He sat opposite to her in the empty 
carriage into which he had placed her, with a thunder- 
cloud on his brow. 

“ What cursed luck !” he thought savagely. “ That 
cat of a woman is capable of going up to Wimpole Street 
to her grandmother the first thing in the morning — they 
will take her away from me, hold me up as a monster 
of wickedness — and I shall lose her ! My God ! if I 
lose her I think I shall blow my brains out !” 

He leant forward just before they got to Charing Cross 
and took her small ungloved hand in his. 

“ Nell, you won’t let anybody set you against me, will 
you ? You won’t let them make you hate me ?” he said 
earnestly — more earnestly perhaps than he had ever said 
anything in his life. 

“ Oh, to have a clean record, and to be free I” was the 
muttered groan that came from his heart of hearts at 
that moment. 

“I love you so much, little Nell!” he said aloud. 


THE VOICE OF THE TEMPTER. 


23 


“ Whatever happens, promise me never to forget that I 
love you with all my heart.” 

She trembled a little — yet she smiled at him happily. 

“ No one could set me against you, or make me hate 
you, Colonel Darley. How could they ? Do I not know 
for myself how very, very good you are ?” 

His face drooped — he could not meet her eyes. 

“ They might tell you about— about bad things I have 
done,” he murmured, looking down at the small childish 
hands he still held. “ Those people, for instance — they 
might come and tell you stories against me.” 

“ And do you suppose that I should believe any stories 
against you ? I will never believe anything, Colonel 
Darley, that you do not tell me yourself.” 

He stooped his head and kissed her hands. 

“And as to doing wrong things,” she went on, “of 
course we have all done things that are not right. I 
know that I have often, but if one is sorry when one has 
done wrong, that wipes it all away, doesn’t it ?” 

But the man with all a lifetime of sins upon his head 
could say nothing in answer to this simple theory of 
penitence and of purification. For alas, how were those 
little childish faults of hers, of which she was thinking, 
to be spoken of in the same breath as the dark stains 
upon his own soul I 

And then worse things happened — for when they got 
out at Charing Cross Station, somehow, in the crush of 
people all going the same way, they found themselves 
quite close to Mr. and Mrs. Hart wood. 

Nell gave a little cry of welcome, and held out her 
hand. 

“Mrs. Hartwood! how odd we should meet up in 
London. I suppose you have been down to Gravesend. 
And how are you both ? and was little Tommy better 
when you came away ? and are you going back before 
Sunday, Mr. Hartwood ? or have you got anybody to do 
the duty for you? but — what is it?” 

Her voice faltered and gave way : she fell back a step 
or two. Mrs. Hartwood was looking at her full in the 
face with a stony stare as if she had never seen her 
before. She passed her arm through her husband’s, 
although the vicar made as if he would have stopped. 


24 : 


A BAD LOT. 


“ Come, John,” she said to him, “ there is a cab, wo 
must get home quickly, there is no occasion to stop to 
speak to strangers in a crowd like this,” and with her 
chin well in the air the vicar’s lady turned her back 
upon Nell Forrester and her companion, and swept her 
husband away towards the four-wheeled cab to which 
she had beckoned. 

Nell remained almost speechless with dismay and 
astonishment. 

“ What on earth does she mean ?” she cried, turning 
to Colonel Darley. “She seems not to recognize me, 
and yet she must have seen me perfectly, for she looked 
me straight in the face, and she called me a stranger ! 
AYiiat could she mean by it ?” 

“ She meant to cut you because you were with me, 
that is what she meant, d — n her! I told you not to 
go near them. I knew that d — d woman would insult 
you.” 

Darlev was absolutely beside himself with rage ; al- 
though he had many faults, to swear in the presence of 
a lady was not usually one of them, but for the moment 
he could not control himself, so great was his fury. 

They got into a hansom and drove to Wimpole Street 
almost in silence ; he did not speak to her till they were 
nearly at their destination. 

“ I cannot understand it in the very least,” said Nell 
at last. 

“ Do not trouble yourself to understand ; for heaven’s 
sake forget the hateful woman altogether.” 

They had stopped Avithin a few doors of Lady For- 
rester’s house, and he helped her out of the cab. 

“ Go home and forget her,” he repeated more gently ; 
“ dream about me, and about our happy day together, 
dear. To-morrow morning I shall be here, just where 
Ave are now, at eleven o’clock, to wait for you. Come 
out and meet me, and we will have a little walk and talk 
together, as I said. Good-night now, dear child.” 


A CHILD IN YEARS, A WOMAN IN STRENGTH. 25 


CHAPTER III. 

A CHILD IN TEARS, A WOMAN IN STRENGTH. 

“ Grandmamma, I have something very important to 
say to you.” 

Lady Forrester laid down her newspaper and looked 
over her spectacles across the breakfast table at her 
granddaughter. “Dear me, Nell, what is it?” 

Lady Forrester’s face was a kind old face, despite the 
paint and the rouge and the wig of fair curls with which 
it was decked out. “ A painted old Harridan,” some one 
of her many friends had said of her — and so she was — 
and a “ wicked old woman,” some one else had called 
her, and perhaps that was true as well, but she was by 
no means an unpleasant old woman to talk to for all that. 
She had twinkling blue eyes, and a shrewd smile, and a 
great love of gossip and scandal, and an unbounded, 
although unspoken, sympathy at the bottom of her 
heart with all pleasant sins and sinners young or old. 

“ This sounds rather formidable, Nell. What is this 
‘very important’ thing, pray?” 

Nell came round and stood by her chair. She wore a 
brown holland frock, with a broad brown sash tied round 
her slim waist ; her long hair reached below her sash, 
and her frock only reached down to her ankles. Any- 
thing more youthful and childish, and more utterly 
removed from the cares and troubles of womanhood 
than was her appearance, it would have been impossible 
to imagine. 

“ I suppose you want some money out of me for some 
treat, or do you want leave to go away and stay with 
these new friends of yours — what is their name by the 
way ? — altogether ? ” 

“ I only want to ask you to give me your advice. 
Granny,” said Nell gravely. 

“Well, my dear, I can certainly promise you that; 
advice is cheap,” chuckled the old lady, “and most 


26 


A BAD LOT. 


people are lavishly extravagant in the commodity. But 
what am I to advise you about, pray ?” 

“ A gentleman has asked me to marry him.” 

“ Good heavens alive !” The newspaper fell out of 
Lady Forrester’s hands and her spectacles tumbled down 
wdth a clatter on the parquet floor. That she herself 
did not fall down in a flt after them was only due to the 
intense amusement which immediately acted like a tonic 
upon her amazement. 

“ Good gracious, child ! Is this a practical joke you 
are playing upon me?” and Lady Forrester began to 
laugh. 

“ Not in the least. I am perfectly serious.” 

“ But — a gentleman you say ? A gentleman asks you 
— you — little Nell, a baby in short frocks! Why, he 
must have been joking!” 

“ He was not joking in the least, grandmamma,” re- 
plied Nell, this time with something ot oflence. 

“ Oh, but this is lovely ! My dear, pray forgive me 
for laughing, but really it is very amusing; and this is 
the upshot, I suppose, of all these days in the country 
you have been spending with your friends ?” 

Nell nodded, her face was still grave, but it had be- 
come rather red. 

“ And this gentleman ? Another babe and suckling, I 
suppose ? How old is he ? Seventeen or eighteen, eh ? 
Hoes his mother know he has proposed ? Is he in turn- 
down collars ? Has he left Eton ? Are you quite sure 
he is eighteen yet ?” 

“I am not at all sure of his exact age,” replied Nell 
with a crushing hauteur, “ he did not tell me how old 
he is, but I know that he was at college the same year 
as papa, and so I believe he must be very nearly forty.” 

Lady Forrester left off laughing, and sat bolt upright 
in her chair. 

“Eh? What? Forty ^ did you say? Then it is 
serious! I suppose the man can afford to keep you. 
then?” ^ 

A small smile stole over Nell’s face. 

“ I suppose so,” she answered demurely. 

“ Is he rich ?” 

It was Nell’s turn to laugh lightly. 


A CHILD IN YEARS, A WOMAN IN STRENGTH 27 


I haven’t asked him, but I should say that he was 
well-off. He has got a yacht ; and he gave me — this.” 
She held out her arm, and the morning sun that shone 
into the dreary London dining-room glistened upon the 
ring of diamonds that encircled her watch. “May I 
keep it, grandmamma?” 

“ Gertainly, my dear; keep everything you can get. 
I mean — ahem — of course you may receive a present 
from the gentleman you are engaged to. This is very 
exciting, Nell. I am really delighted. You are cleverer 
than your sisters; and really, now I come to look at 
you, 1 think you are quite as good-looking as Camilla. 
Only fancy a baby like you having caught a husband 
before either of the others ; and a rich husband, too.” 

“ Oh, grandmamma, please do not talk like that.” 
And Nell blushed hotly. “ You know I only wanted to 
ask you if I was not too young to be married ; he is so 
much older and wiser and better than I am ; and, oh, I 
can’t tell you how good he is; but I have not settled it 
at all yet.” 

“ But you must settle it, Nell, at once, this very day,” 
cried Lady Forrester with agitation, whilst at her heart 
she thought: “He might find out something about her 
mother, or hear something about poor dear Gordon’s un- 
fortunate little ways. I do hope he won’t try to borrow 
money of Nell’s lover before they are married. It might 
break off the match.” 

“ Come and sit down near me, dearest Nell, and tell 
me all about it. I suppose you have met him at these 
friends’ you have been seeing every day?” 

“ Dear grandmamma, please forgive me for not having 
quite explained it to you. The fact is — he is the friend.” 

“ What — this gentleman ? No ladies were there ? I 
thought you told me ” 

“ I think you misunderstood me, grandmamma ; and 
I am very, very sorry now, for I know that 1 deceived 
you — at least, I let you believe there were others, but all 
the time it was only him.” 

“ There was no lady with you?” 

u iq'o — no one — only our two selves.” 

“Oh!” A pause. Lady Forrester became thought- 
ful ; but she was a happy-go-lucky sort of person, and 


28 


A BAD LOT. 


she was not long disturbed. “Well, of course, Nell, 
you ought to have told me the truth ; but, there, ‘ all is 
well that ends well,’ and I will say no more about it. 
He has asked you to marry him, so it’s all right, of 
course. And now tell me his name ?” 

Nell had nestled down by her grandmother’s side con- 
fidingly. Lady Forrester put her arm round her and 
kissed her affectionately. The old lady was pleased with 
her. She ought to have had a chaperone, of course. 
She ought not to have gone out alone with this man, 
w’hoever he was ; but she always liked people who did 
well for themselves in life, better than those who made 
failures ; and she was quite ready to forgive her for her 
trifling indiscretion. 

“ I shall leave her all my money,” she thought, “ and 
give her her wedding dresses into the bargain. Her sis- 
ters with all their airs and graces can’t find a decent 
man to marry either of them, and here is this child in 
short frocks who has done the business already, all by 
herself too, with nobody to help her on but her own 
good sense — a clever little puss, to be sure.” 

“ Now, let me hear his name, Nell, and all about him,” 
she said once more, pinching the girl’s soft round cheek 
playfully. 

Nell was kneeling by her side, leaning a little against 
her shoulder, and fingering the bead-work trimmings on 
the front of her violet satin gown. 

“ His name is Darley — Colonel Yane Harley,” she said 
softly, with a little caressing intonation in her voice, as 
she lingered over the beloved name. 

There was a pause, quite whilst she might have counted 
ten. 

Then a sharp shrill voice that scarcely sounded like 
Lady Forrester’s at all : 

“Lane Darley! Ho you mean your father’s friend, 
Yane Harley ?” 

“ Yes,” said Nell quite composedly, with a little nod. 

Lady Forrester pushed the girl away from her side 
with a violence that almost threw her over on the floor. 

“ Good God ! What a fool you are !” 

“ Grandmamma !” 

“ Hon’t sit there staring and gaping at me, miss. How 


A CHILD IN YEARS, A WOMAN IN STRENGTH. 29 

dare you tell me that a gentleman asked you to marry 
him, when it is only that old sinner who has been making 
a fool of you !” 

“ Grandmamma, I do not understand at all why you 
are so angry. There is no reason on earth,” continued 
Nell, rising to her feet and speaking with great decision, 
“ why I should not marry Colonel Barley ; and it makes 
no difference to me whether you like him or no, because 
I intend to marry him.” Nell did not want advice any 
longer, the opposition acted like magic upon her, and 
she made up her mind at once. 

“ilfarry Colonel Darley — marry him !” cried Lady For- 
rester scornfully. “ He asked you to marry him, did he ? 
Well, he is a greater blackguard than I took him for.” 

“ You shall not abuse him,” cried the girl with blazing 
eyes. “ I don’t care a scrap whether you like him or 
no, but you shall not call him bad names.” 

Lady Forrester laughed — a nasty bitter laugh it was 
this time. 

“ Don’t be a fool, child ; it doesn’t signify at all, cer- 
tainly, whether 1 like him ; as a matter of fact I do like 
him — everybody does — for he is a very agreeable man. 
It is not a matter of liking at all. What I want to know 
is, how on earth he proposes to marry you, or anybody 
else, when he has got a wife alive already ?” 

Nell stood motionless and rigid as if she had been 
turned into stone. The angry fire in her eyes died out, 
the hot colour in her face faded slowly, leaving her 
deadly pale ; for a few minutes neither of them spoke — 
neither the young woman nor the old ; then, in a suffo- 
cated whisper, the girl said at last : 

“ It is false ! I do not believe it.” 

“ Oh, it is false, is it ?” echoed her grandmother with 
angry asperity. “I tell lies, do I? Well, find out for 
yourself then. Ask this precious lover of yours if he 
intended to marry you in a church honestly, or if he 
did not mean you to run away with him on his yacht 
without any such trifling preliminary as a wedding?” 

The words struck cruelly, almost fatally, upon Nell’s 
ears. Was it possible that they were true ? Had he 
indeed mentioned any such word as “marriage” to her? 
She could not recollect. There came a mist of darkness 

3 * 


30 


A BAD LOT. 


before her eyes — for a moment she covered them with 
her hand, and she staggered a little, poor child, and 
caught at the table beside her. Then she recovered her- 
self, for she remembered his words of last night : 

“ You won't let anybody set you against me, will you f 
You won't let them make you hate mef he had said to 
her. 

She drew up her head with a gesture of defiance as 
his words came back to her. “IS'o, no, no!” she said to 
herself; “ ten thousand times no 1 I will be true to him ; 
I will not believe this terrible thing — only from his own 
lips will I believe it. I^o one shall come between us.” 

Aloud, she said quietly and with a dignity which filled 
Lady Forrester with astonishment : 

“ I shall do as you say ; I shall ask him, grandmamma. 
You are mistaken, I know. We will see what he says 
himself.” 

Then she turned and left the room without another 
word. 

Colonel Yane Farley waited that morning for a full 
hour, walking up and down Wimpole Street, and as he 
waited he grew every moment more and more impatient 
to see his little girl, and more and more anxious as to 
the reason of her delay. 

“ Something must have gone wrong,” he muttered to 
himself as he consulted his watch for the fiftieth time. 
“ She has heard something, perhaps — perhaps that beast 
of a parson’s wife has been before me. Or, great 
heavens 1 she may be ill !” 

At last, being really very much in love, and not being 
at all of a timid nature. Colonel Farley could bear it no 
longer, and went up boldly to the house and rang the 
bell. 

“ Is Miss Forrester at home ?” 

His question was answered by another. 

“ Are you Colonel Farley, sir ?” 

Yes, I am.” 

“ Then would you please to walk this way, sir. Miss 
Forrester will see you here.” 

He was ushered into a dingy back room on the ground 
floor. 

It was one of the most dreary little rooms he had 


A CHILD IN YEARS, A WOMAN IN STRENGTH. 31 

ever seen. The window opened on to a sad blank wall, 
grey and discoloured by the rain. There was a table 
covered with a dusty brown cloth in the centre, and a 
few chairs round the walls, two bookcases filled with 
shabby school-books in the spaces on either side of the 
fireplace, and two or three sombre oil paintings in tar- 
nished frames hung opposite them. There was no clock 
upon the mantelpiece — only some cheap imitation bronze 
vases. It was a room to give one the shivers. And 
Vane Darley, who loved light and colour and beauty, 
was inconceivably depressed by it — it struck a cold chill 
in him to stand and wait in that room. He waited for 
several minutes, and whilst he waited his eyes wandered 
uneasily about the prison-like gloom of the cheerless 
place. To his life’s end he never forgot it — that room 
was destined to be branded into his heart for ever. 

Presently the door opened softly and Nell came in. 

“My darling!” he cried joyfully, going forward to 
meet her, and opening his arms as though he would 
have taken her to his heart — but something in her face 
arrested him. It looked older, graver, sadder, more 
the face of a woman altogether, than it had done last 
night. 

“ Why did you not come out ?” he said, taking her 
hand instead of attempting the warmer greeting he had 
for a moment contemplated. Her hand seemed to him 
to be strangely cold and unresponsive. “ I have been 
waiting for you a whole hour, you little wretch I” 

“ I know. I wanted to speak to you here — in grand- 
mamma’s house, not in the street — and I knew that if 
I did not come out you would come in and see me 
here.” 

“ What is the matter, Nell ?” There seemed to be no 
use in beating about the bush ; it was better to go straight 
to the point. There was something about her so different 
— she was no longer the happy guileless child of yester- 
day. “ Has that parson-woman been here ?” he asked 
almost feverishly. 

“ Mrs. Hartwood ?” with surprise. “ Oh, no. Why 
should she have come here? Ah I” — striking her hands 
sharply together — “ I see it now I I see now why she 
cut me last night I” 


32 


A BAD LOT. 


What do you mean, Nell ? What do you see ? You 
speak in riddles, child. Come and tell me all about it.” 

He sat down upon one of the straight-backed chairs, 
and tried to draw her down upon his knee, as though 
she were indeed the child he called her. 

But she stood before him erect and straight, her level 
glance meeting his firnily and fully. 

“ Colonel Harley, I have been told a dreadful thing 
about you ” 

“And have believed it, of course,” he answered with 
an uneasy laugh. “ You are like the rest of your sex,” 
he went on bitterly, “ always eager to listen to a scan- 
dal.” 

“I have believed and listened to nothing against you. 
You will tell me yourself that it is false, and I shall 
believe you.” 

“ What is this tremendous indictment ? Let me at 
least hear it,” he said more gently. 

“ I have been told that you are a married man, and 
that your wife is alive. Is this true ?” 

He looked away from her for half a minute, and drew 
in a long breath between his set teeth. 

“Well, and if it were true ” he began. 

“Is it true?” she persisted. 

“Yes.” 

That one word killed Nell Forrester’s childhood. She 
was never afterwards the same. So much of trust and 
love and faith died in her at that moment that never, 
never to the end of all time could her crushed and 
bruised soul recover from the shock of it. It turned 
her from a child into a woman — from the trustfulness 
of innocence into a hardened sceptic. She had believed 
him good, and he was evil ; she had taken him for a god, 
and he was but an idol of clay. 

She was not angry ; she did not reproach him ; she 
did not even cry ; she only turned away from him 
dumbly — stricken to the very heart. 

She was but a child in years, but she was at all events 
woman enough to understand what this meant to her. 

“But, Nell! listen! only listen to me!” he pleaded, 
taking her limp hand and drawing her towards him. 
“ I never told you that I was free. I cannot indeed 


A CHILD IN YEARS, A WOMAN IN STRENGTH. 33 


marry you, but I can love you and be as true to you as 
if you were my wife. As there is a God above us, I 
swear that I will be the same to you as though fifty 
priests had tied us together. We would go right away 
to the other side of the world ; we should be as bappy 
as the days were long ; you would always be called by 
my name ” 

“ You are married !” she repeated dully. 

“ Yes, to a woman I have not seen for fifteen years. 
Is that ‘ marriage,’ do you suppose ? Is there much 
sanctity in such a union as that? Can a few words 
spoken before a parson with no oneness of heart and no 
alfection be one half so real, so binding and so sacred, 
do you think, as that perfect fusion of two souls into 
one, that constitutes true marriage in its highest and 
noblest form ? and that is the marriage that would be 
ours, my dearest.” 

She shook her head sadly. 

“ I know nothing about all that. I cannot argue, for 
I don’t understand. I only know that it is all over, and 
that you must go.” 

“Nell, you cannot mean to banish me altogether? 
You will let me see you again ? You will think it over, 
won’t you?” 

“ If I were to think it over for ever, could it possibly 
make any difference ?” she asked sadly. 

“But only think, Nell. You are such a child; you 
cannot understand. You do not know how hard it is to 
be happy in this world ; how rare love is; how worse 
than useless it is to throw it away. And I love you, my 
little darling — bad as 1 may be — I love you.” 

She held up her hands suddenly with a piteous 
gesture. 

“ Do not — do not say any more,” she cried, a little 
brokenly ; “ do not make it harder. I am only a child, 
I know. Very likely I am foolish and ignorant ; though 
I seem to have grown older — much older than I was 
yesterday ; still I know enough to be sure of one thing : 
one must not find happiness that way — not — through — 
shame." 

The last word was spoken low, beneath her breath, 
and her head drooped low upon her bosom. 
c 


34 


A BAD LOT. 


“ Am I to go, then ?” he asked at last, after a long 
silence — a silence during which the hardened man of the 
world seemed to live through a whole cycle of passion 
and remorse, of fruitless regrets that he must lose this 
child — this offspring of a bad stock — whose womanhood 
had taught her, nevertheless, the first great lessons of an 
instinctive purity. 

Before that purity, Yane Barley’s evil thoughts and 
designs sank abashed and disarmed. He knew he could 
do no more ; the game was up. He saw that he had 
lost her, and he had at least the manliness not to press 
her further. 

She had valued her woman’s whiteness more than she 
valued his love. What else was there then for him to do 
but to go ? 

“ Do you send me away, Hell ?” he asked in a voice 
that was hoarse and choked with emotion. 

She bent her head in assent. 

In another second the door closed softly behind him, 
and Hell was alone. 


CHAPTER lY. 

FIVE YEARS LATER. 

In the drawing-room of a certain house in Rutland 
Gate, one Monday afternoon in the month of October, a 
young man was standing with his back to a small fire 
and his coat-tails tucked up under his arms. 

He faced two ladies, both of them elderly and both of 
them widows, one being his mother and the other an 
aunt, his late father’s sister, who lived with her ; and to 
them both he had just made a somewhat startling and 
disturbing announcement. He had told them briefly 
that he was engaged to be married — and to whom. 

Such an announcement from the lips of an adult male 
being comes well within the ordinary laws of nature, 
and is but the prelude to a not uncommon incident 
of humanity; it is therefore somewhat curious that it 


FIVE YEARS LATER, 


35 


should so often excite a large measure of painful and 
almost incredulous perturbation in the minds of his re- 
lations. In the present instance, the blank dismay of 
utter consternation had fallen like a pall upon the two 
women to whom the interesting communication had 
been made. 

For a moment, however, no one of the three could 
utter a word, for the simple reason that, it being the 
hour of five-o’clock tea, the footraan had just entered 
the room and was laying out the teacups. They re- 
mained, therefore, in absolute silence, staring at each 
other. 

But the very instant that the door had closed upon 
the departing man-servant, Mr. Cecil Eoscoe, barrister- 
at-law, threw up his head and straightened himself, 
mentally and physically, for the fray. 

“ There is no reason,” he said with some defiance, “ no 
reason at all, why I should not marry whom I choose.” 

“ It is a bitter disappointment to me, Cecil,” said Mrs. 
Eoscoe, his mother, with the deepest dejection. 

Mrs. Torrens threw up her thin hands mutely, with a 
gesture of despair, and sighed. 

The sigh exasperated him even more intensely than 
the remark. 

“ There is nothing to be melancholy about,” resumed 
the young man, glaring almost fiercely at his aunt. 
“God bless my soul! one would think we were talking 
about a funeral instead of a wedding I I am the hap- 
piest man on earth since yesterday, and yet neither of 
you offer me one single word of congratulation.” 

“ I had hoped so much, Cecil ; I had believed that you 
would have married so well — and oh 1 so very differently. 
Of course, if you are happy ” 

“Such happiness is certain to be short-lived,” inter- 
rupted Mrs. Torrens, shaking her head sternly. “ Think 
of it — a Forrester of Marshlands ! What happiness can 
any man hope for out of such a connection as that ?” 

“ Yet what on earth is there so very dreadful about 
the Forresters of Marshlands?” cried Cecil irritably. 
“ I confess I cannot see why everybody is down on them. 
They are poor, it is true, but there is no disgrace in 
poverty. I do not want a rich wife. If she brings me 


36 


A BAD LOT. 


not a sixpence, my dear girl, at least, is as thorough a 
lady as any duke’s daughter in the land.” 

“ My dear boy, you seem to have forgotten the story of 
her mother, that disgraceful and abandoned creature ” 

“I have not been allowed to forget it,” answered the 
young man with a short laugh ; his fair, smooth-shaven 
face flushed suddenly. “I have been told it a dozen 
times. I know that Gordon Forrester, like many a better 
man, made a fool of himself in early life, and married a 
burlesque actress, and that after a few years she left 
him. His youngest daughter was a baby of a few 
months old at the time. How can 3 0U suppose her to 
be responsible for what took place in her infancy ? Why 
cannot an old story like that be wiped out and forgotten ? 
I am not concerned with her mother — I am concerned 
with her.” 

“You seem to forget, Cecil, that we are expressly told 
on High Authority that the sins of the fathers are visited 
on the children — hovv much more, then, the sins of the 
mothers !” 

“ It is an infernal shame, then, whoever said it,” mut- 
tered the young man, looking angrily down at his feet. 

“Now you are blasphemous,” said Mrs. Torrens se- 
verely. “There seems to be no religion amongst the 
young men of the present day, and 1 think no sense of 
propriety either, or it would not occur to you to mate 
with the daughter of a bad woman of low extraction. 
Remember that these things are in the blood, and re- 
appear in families down to the third and fourth genera- 
tions.” 

“ I have not studied the theory of heredity, my dear 
aunt, but really I think your argument is beside the 
mark. I admit that the story of that unfortunate 
woman is an unhappy one, and is a disadvantage to her 
daughters — they are perhaps to be pitied — but I do not 
wish to dwell upon this. The girl I am going to many 
is as good as she is lovely ; it will be my duty and my 
joy to place her in happier surroundings. My dear 
mother, I look to you to be good to her.” 

Mrs. Eoscoe was tearful ; encounters between her son 
and her sister-in-law always made her nervous, for Mrs. 
Torrens was the wealthy member of the family. She 


FIVE FEARS LATER. 


37 


was rich and childless, and it had always been Mrs. 
Roscoe’s hope that Cecil might be her heir ; yet he was 
everlastingly quarrelling with her — and now this terrible 
engagement to this undesirable girl ! Would it not put 
the finishing touch to her displeasure? 

“Dear Selina,” she said, turning to the irascible old 
lady, who sat bolt upright at the edge of her chair, 
clothed in sable garments with sharp, high features and 
small twinkling eyes, like a bird of ill-omen, “ Cecil, I 
am sure, would like us to make the best of things, and 
if this young lady herself is really a good and modest 
girl, ought we not, perhaps, to lay aside some of our 
objections to her family?” 

“Ah! but is she good? Girls have a way of appearing 
to be angels to the men who are in love with them. How 
are you to be an unprejudiced judge of what she really 
is? For how long have you known her, Cecil?” 

“ I have known her three weeks,” answered the young 
man, flushing uneasily, for he was perhaps conscious 
that there were some very weak joints in his armour, or 
else why did he protest so much ? 

“ Three weeks !” exclaimed his mother in horror, “ and 
you actually propose to spend your life with a person 
you have only known three weeks ? How can you take 
the most serious and solemn step in the whole of your 
career in this hasty and ineonsidered fashion ? My dear 
boy, I entreat you to reflect and pause before it is too 
late.” 

“ My dearest mother, if I were to reflect and pause 
till I were grey-headed I could come to no other conclu- 
sion. I love Hell Forrester, and I am determined to 
marry her,” replied Cecil, with a warmth which carried 
a sense of conviction of his earnestness to his hearers. 

“ But what sort of opportunity can you have had of 
knowing her? Where have you seen her? Where did 
you meet her ?” 

“ I wish to have no concealment at all from you. I 
met her first at a ball. I went down to Fenchester to 
stay with Charley Drake in the 110th; his regiment is 
quartered there, and they were giving a dance. Drake 
and I were at Eton together ; he is a good little fellow 
and we have always remained friends. He introduced 

4 


38 


A BAD LOT. 


me to Mr. Gordon Forrester and to his daughters ; there 
are three of them, and Nell is the youngest.” 

“And I have heard from my friends the Stanfords, 
who live in that neighbourhood, that those girls are an 
actual byeword in the county ! They are fast and noisy, 
and their flirtations with the officers at the barracks are 
a positive disgrace. Nobody in Fenshire will know them, 
I hear.” 

“You have heard a somewhat exaggerated account, my 
dear aunt, of what is partially true about the two elder 
Miss Forresters. Dorothea and Millicent are frank open- 
hearted girls, whose spirits, I admit, occasionally run 
away with their discretion ; they certainly do flirt with 
the young fellows quartered at Fenchester, and as they 
are full of fan and jokes they sometimes grow a little 
uproarious. But I could stake my existence that there 
is not the smallest atom of harm in either of them. As 
to my girl, she is totally different to her elder sisters. 
She is sweet and gentle, as gay as a bird and as fresh as 
a flower, and I know instinctively that she is as good as 
gold. Afterwards — after the ball I mean — I went to the 
house. I saw her in her home more than once. I went 
down, as you know, into the' country on Saturday, and 
I stayed at Marshlands until this morning. Yesterday, 
I asked her to be my wdfe and she accepted me. Now 
you have the whole story, my dear mother, and you too. 
Aunt Selina, although you are so hard on me. Do you 
suppose,” added the young man with a sudden earnest- 
ness — “ do you suppose for one moment that I am such 
an ass as to wish to marry any but a true and good girl ? 
If I thought there was anything against my dear Nell, 
if there were the faintest breath against her character, 
or the least approach to levity of thought or principle 
in her nature, dearly as I love her, I swear to you both 
that I would sever myself at once from her for ever, at 
whatever pain to myself In these days of unhappy 
and ill-assorted marriages, when the divorce courts are 
crowded with applicants and the papers flooded with 
unsavoury details of a legion of domestic tragedies, all 
more or less disgraceful and nauseous, a man who has 
got common sense and common honesty is not such a 
fool as to take to himself a wife of whose moral recti- 


FIVE YEARS LATER. 


39 


tude lie cannot be absolutely certain. I am in love with 
Nell Forrester, but even my love would not serve to blind 
me to any moral flaw, however minute, in her character, 
and I would cut m^^self off from her at once and for 
ever, should so terrible a revelation ever be made to me.” 

“And yet you propose to marry a girl who three 
weeks ago was an utter stranger to you!” cried Mrs. 
Torrens scornfully. 

“ Pardon me, 1 propose to do nothing of the sort. I 
am, it is true, engaged to her after a three weeks’ ac- 
quaintance, and 1 have no shadow of doubt with regard 
to her ; but if it were only to prove to you how truly 1 
admire and trust her, I shall not think of becoming her 
husband without a deeper and fuller knowledge of her. 
If you wish me to do so, I will promise that our mar- 
riage shall not take place immediately. I have no desire 
to hurry matters on unduly. A few months more or 
less can make no difference to me ; I shall only under- 
stand her more thoroughly, and we shall know each 
other more intimately, and I venture to prophesy that 
the longer I know her the better I shall believe in her 
and trust her.” 

“ Will you give us your word of honour, Cecil,” cried 
his aunt eagerly, “ that you will defer your marriage for 
some months? Let us say until Easter?” 

Cecil turned to his mother. 

“Would such a delay content you, mother? Would 
you be satisfied if 1 were to promise you not to be mar- 
ried till Easter?” 

“ Yes, indeed, my dear boy, it would be an unspeakable 
comfort to me to feel that you were not taking this step 
X'ashly and in ill-conditioned haste.” 

After a moment of silence, Cecil answered resolutely : 

“ Yery well, then ; I will promise. I will not be mar- 
ried until Easter.” 

“And between this and Easter,” thought his mother 
with satisfaction, “ all sorts of things might take place ; 
all is perhaps not lost yet.” Yet, although she en- 
deavoured to glean some consolation out of this thought, 
it was perhaps one of the bitterest blows of her whole 
life that her son had just dealt to her. 

Left a widow after a few years of married life, Mrs. 


40 


A BAD LOT. 


Eoscoe, although she was young enough to have made a 
second marriage, had determined to devote the rest of 
her life entirely to her only child. Cecil’s career, both at 
school and at college, had left nothing to be desired, and 
when he subsequently chose the Bar as the profession he 
desired to enter, she had cheerful^ given up her pretty 
house in the country in order to make a home for him 
in London. For so young a man, Cecil had been singu- 
larly fortunate, he had fallen on his legs at once, and 
after a very few years he had gathered together quite a 
respectable practice, so that he was at this time in re- 
ceipt of a fair income and was practically independent 
of his mother. It was solely with a view to his ulterior 
benefit that, soon after settling in Eutland Gate, Mrs. 
Eoscoe offered to join forces with her husband’s widowed 
sister Mrs. Torrens, who was many years older than her- 
self. Mrs. Torrens, as has been stated, was wealthy and 
childless, and she professed to take a keen interest in 
her nephew. It was, perhaps, the greatest mistake that 
Cecil’s mother had ever made. Mrs. Torrens had not 
been long an inmate of their home before it became 
apparent that she and Cecil were keenly antipathetic. 
She was narrow-minded and severe in her views, Cecil 
was obstinate in his own opinions and impatient of his 
aunt’s interference. Still, for the sake of what she 
might eventually do for him, Mrs. Eoscoe endeavoured to 
keep the peace and to promote a good understanding 
between her son and his aunt. She was often torn in 
two betwixt them, for if her affection went to her son, 
it is certain that her judgment often coincided with that 
of her sister-in-law. 

It is not to be supposed that these two ladies, who, in 
spite of minor differences, both had Cecil’s interest and 
advantage sincerely at heart, had not formed some plan 
together concerning that most momentous event of a 
man's life — his marriage. 

The subject had been discussed over and over between 
them. They were in no hurry for him to make a home 
for himself — that he should marry before he was two or 
three and thirty did not seem to them to be wise or pru- 
dent ; he was now only nine-and-twenty, in three or four 
years it would be time enough, they felt, that he should 


FIVE YEARS LATER. 


41 


settle down ; and it is perhaps quite needless to say that 
they had not only fixed upon the time, but also upon 
the lady whom he was to marry. 

No heir to the throne was ever the object of more 
earnest and serious solicitude than was Cecil Eoscoe in 
this respect. The girl whom they had selected to be 
his wife was one whom he had known all his life. Ida 
Yincent had been his playfellow ever since his schoolboy 
days — in old days the Vincents had been neighbours in 
the country, they lived now three doors olf. Ida had 
come to spend the day with him often in the holidays, 
and had grown up with him almost like a cousin. 

The girl was an only child, and she would one day be 
very rich — but she was neither pretty nor clever — and 
as they both grew older Cecil ceased to take much in- 
terest in her, she was merely in his eyes a well-dressed 
little nonentity whom his mother was fond of, and it did 
not occur to him that she had any special preference for 
himself A man does not usually fail in love with a girl 
who is always there, and whom he has called by her 
Christian name all his life — it is the new and the un- 
known that attracts his fancy and captures his heart. 
But in Ida Vincent’s eyes Cecil was a divinity. Young 
women are not slow to guess at things connected with 
their own future settlement in life, and Miss Vincent 
divined easily that the entente cordiale between Cecil’s 
mother and aunt and her own parents did not exist for 
nothing. 

Cecil, moreover, was all that was attractive to the 
fancy of a girl who, owing to her mother’s ill-health and 
her father’s business engagements, went out but very 
little into the society of young people of her own age. 
Cecil was the only young man with whom she had ever 
been much thrown, and he was handsome, clever and 
successful — his smooth-shaven face with its sensitive 
features and keen blue eyes seemed to her to be a type 
of all that was desirable in manhood. She had moulded 
herself upon his opinions for years, for she had none of 
her own. She read the books that he recommended, 
admired the pictures and the music she had heard him 
say that he liked, and echoed his views upon religion 
and politics with a parrot-like persistence. 

4 * 


42 


A BAD LOT. 


Cecil thought her a silly little thing, for although she 
was now five-and-twenty, she always seemed to him a 
child ; but Ida Vincent, in ignorance of his opinion of 
her, continued to worship him. 

Poor Ida ! She little knew what was in store for her 
to-day when, timing her visit with a due regard to his 
probable return from the Temple, she found herself upon 
the doorstep of Mrs. Eoscoe’s house at about half-past 
five o’clock. 

She came in smiling and a little shy, for she had grown 
to be shy with her old playmate latterly, and the butler, 
who understood the situation perfectly, had not failed 
to inform her duly that “ The ladies were both at home, 
and also Mr. Cecil.” 

As she was ushered into the warm and pretty room, 
with its oriental draperies and its tall palms and its 
fiowers and photographs, with the pleasant firelight 
flickering brightly upon the pictures and china upon 
the walls and upon the little tea table in front of the 
hearth, she saw at once that Cecil’s face was full of some 
new emotion, and that the elder ladies were excited and 
a little disturbed ; and she heard his mother say quickly 
to her son as she came in : 

“ We will not say anything about it to Ida, I think, 
my dear.” And then Cecil’s brisk voice in reply : 

“ On the contrary, I am going to tell Ida all about it 
at once. From my old playfellow, at any rate,” and he 
turned to her with a bright and confident smile, “ I feel 
certain of sympathy and good wishes.” 

Her small face, that was not at all striking or beautiful, 
flushed with pleasure — was it some new Brief that was 
to make him rich and famous? That was the thought 
that flashed through her mind. How good of himT to 
turn to her for sympathy ! 

“ Oh, Cecil, of course I always sympathize with you, 
you know.” she said a little breathlessly. 

“ Then wish me joy and good luck, Ida, for I am en- 
gaged to the dearest and best and loveliest girl in all 
England,” he cried gaily. 

If Ida Vincent had had any doubts before concerning 
her love for Cecil, she had none whatever now. 

A pang like a knife-thrust went through her heart, 


THE FORRESTERS OF MARSHLANDS. 43 

and for a moment or two the room seemed to swing and 
sway around her. 

But she was secretive and reserved by nature, and 
there was that amount of courage in her that she would 
have died sooner than have let him guess the truth. 

She looked up at him with a sickly smile and held out 
her hand. The young man was too full of his own new 
excitement and hopes to notice how wan and grey the 
insignificant little face had suddenly become. Besides, 
dear good little Ida — he was fond of her of course, they 
were such old, old friends; but he never did take any 
particular notice of her, she did not interest him, and 
whether she looked ill or well, sad or happy, it was all 
the same to him, as long as he got exactly what he 
wanted himself. He wanted sympathy just at this 
moment, and he was perfectly satisfied when she held 
out her hand and said to him with apparent cordiality: 

“ I hope indeed that you may be happy, Cecil.” 


CHAPTEE Y. 

THE FORRESTERS OF MARSHLANDS. 

Five years is an appreciable space of time in the his- 
tory of a human life. In five years one may have lived 
through a whole cycle of experiences ; change and mis- 
fortune have had time to assail us, disease and death to 
torture and rack our bodies, treachery and cruelty to 
wring or break our hearts. Yet, sometimes again it 
happens that a whole five years of our life will slip away 
as quickly and as uneventfully as though they were as 
many days, and nothing will intervene in all that time 
to trouble the dead level of our tranquil existence. 

And so it had chanced to be with Nell Forrester in 
the five years that had elapsed since that first memorable 
visit to her grandmother’s house in AYimpole Street. It 
all seems very long ago to her now. 

Nell Forrester is twenty-one. She is a beautiful young 
woman, several inches taller than the little girl in brown 


44 


A BAD LOT. 


holland frocks who entered upon her woman’s experi- 
ence of life in so stormy a manner. The once slim slip 
of a girl of sixteen has developed into a tall and ex- 
ceedingly graceful woman. Her long hair is now-a-days 
decorously wound into a thick bronze knot at the back 
of her head; but although her shining eyes are as bright 
and lovely as in her childish days, there has stolen over 
the young face that was once so full of eager animation, 
an intangible something, which has made it altogether a 
graver and sadder face than it promised to be when last 
we saw her. And yet let it not be supposed that this is 
altogether Colonel Vane Harley’s fault. 

Hell had no doubt suffered very much at the time 
on his account. When the door of her grandmother’s 
dreary little back study had closed upon him, and she 
realised that he was gone beyond recall — that she her- 
self had sent him away, and that he would never come 
back to her any more — she had felt at first as if she 
should die of it. It was only then, when she knew that 
he had gone irrevocably out of her life, that she began 
to understand what he had become to her ; and the pain 
that she endured taught her her own capacity both for 
love and suffering. In one short day the girl learnt all 
that it often takes years for women to find out. 

She went through a bad time. Often and often during 
those first days, through long hours of miserable and 
hopeless tears, she was tempted to rescind her decision — 
to undo the words that had sent him from her — to write 
to his club, and to ask him to come back to her. Yet 
she never did so. All that she suffered was never quite 
enough to overcome the strong instinct of right and of 
wrong that had given her the courage to send him from 
her. 

And then, as the days went on, and she fought her 
battle over and over again, each time that she conquered 
she found that the victory grew easier ; and then Time, 
the healer, came to her help, so that she began, as was 
natural, to recover. She was young and she had a brave, 
strong heart. After awhile the image of Vane Harley 
became fainter in her memory. She began to forget 
him. Moreover, first love is not at all the everlasting 
and unalterable thing that poets and romancers would 


THE FORRESTERS OF MARSHLANDS. 


45 


have us believe it to be As a matter of fact, its roots 
are geuerally much nearer the surface, and it takes far 
less hold of the heart than do the later affections of our 
maturer years. A first love is mainly made up of illu- 
sions that are more or less unreal, and of the natural 
desire of youth to love and be loved; often, indeed, it is 
nothing more than flattered vanity, and that pleasing 
sense of excitement which hovers around situations that 
are new and untried. 

All these things do not strike very deep into the soul. 
If they are wrenched out fiercely and suddenly, the 
wounds will bleed profusely ; but they will heal up more 
quickly and more healthily, and will leave less trace 
upon the after-life and character than is likely to be 
produced by a second or even a third blow of the same 
nature. 

Time went on, and she heard nothing at all about 
Colonel Darley. For a long time she had no idea as to 
what had become of him. He used in the old days to 
come down to Marshlands for a Sunday now and again, 
but it did not surprise her that he never came now. 
Then one day she heard her father say to her sister 
Dorothea that he had had a letter from him written 
from Ceylon. He had gone round the world in his yacht 
— was going on to Japan and to Hew Zealand — he did 
not know how long he would be away. Then for years 
his name was never mentioned again, and Hell did not 
know whether he was alive or dead. She was very 
thankful that this was so, for as she grew older she 
realized better the deadly peril into which she had well- 
nigh fallen, and the enormity of the man’s sin against 
her, and her one prayer was that she might never see 
him again. 

But as she began to forget, so also she began to for- 
give him. For, after all, does not forgetfulness of the 
offender lie almost always at the bottom of our forgive- 
ness of the offence ? It all seemed to her so far away 
now, so faint in the dim distance of her childish past. 
Ail the shock of it, and the rough awakening to the 
worst side of life was so long ago — sometimes it almost 
seemed as though it had been nothing but a dream. 

Still, with an odd inconsistency of feeling — which 


46 


A BAD LOT. 


only proved her, however, to be a true daughter of Eve 
— she kept, and still wore, the trinket that Barley had 
given her — the diamond-studded bangle with the minia- 
ture watch in it — which he had clasped upon her wrist 
on that happy day when she sat by his side on the deck 
of the “ Water Witch.” It symbolized to her the ro- 
mance of her life. 

And all this time Kell had kept her own counsel, and 
had told no one about that pitiful little story of her early 
da3'S. With a reticence rare in one young, she had made 
no confidences on the subject to any one : not to her 
father, who was Colonel Barley’s friend, and who w'ould 
have made excuses for him ; not even to her sisters, who 
would perhaps have sj^mpathized with her in their own 
way. Kell never spoke of it to any one — she held her 
tongue, and Colonel Barley’s name never passed her lips. 

Her sisters, not unnaturally, had remarked the bracelet 
upon her arm, but they had taken it for granted that it 
was their grandmother’s present to her. With all her 
meanness, Lady Forrester had occasionally, when the 
fancy took her, bestowed some handsome piece of jew- 
ellery upon her nieces. She had a store of valuable 
trinkets locked up in an iron safe in her bed room. 
Sometimes, when she was in an extra good temper, the 
old lady had been known to unlock the safe and to un- 
earth some of her treasures for their benefit. 

Millie declared that she remembered that tiny watch 
very well — grandmamma used to wear it on her chate- 
laine — and Bottie observed that the diamonds in which 
it was set used to be round the enamelled snutf-box in 
the drawing-room cabinet. 

“ They are paste of course,” said Bottie authoritatively, 
“ but that doesn’t matter ; they look just as well, and it 
was very good of the old thing to have it all mounted 
up fresh for you in the newest fashion. You must be 
in high favour with Granny, Miss Kell.” 

Kell listened to these remarks with a heightened 
colour, but in silence — she neither assented nor dis- 
claimed. 

“ It is safer to let them think it,” she thought, for 
she felt that she would half die of shame if she were to 
confess the truth. 


THE FORRESTERS OF MARSHLANDS. 


47 


An event had occurred immediately after her return 
to Marshlands from her grandmother’s house, which 
went far to render her silence possible and easy. This 
was the sudden and entirely unexpected death of Mr. 
Hartwood, the vicar. He was struck down by paralysis 
on the very day of her return, and never recovered con- 
sciousness again ; and on the seventh day he died. Mrs. 
Hartwood left the Yicarage almost immediately, and 
was understood to have gone to live in London. 

She had been a governess in a school in former days 
before her marriage to Mr. Hartwood, and as she was 
left very badly off, it was believed that she intended to 
resume her former occupation and to eke out her small 
means by giving lessons in painting in water colours, 
for which she was supposed to possess some talent. 

At any rate. Marshlands knew her no more, and a 
new vicar and vicaress reignr ^ " .1.1 



This seemed to remove 


danger that might have threatened the disclosure of her 
secret. 

“She will forget all about it,” she thought, with a 
sense of thankful relief, when she heard that Mrs. Hart- 
wood and all her boxes with her, had actually gone up 
to town by the afternoon express two days after her 
husband’s funeral. 

“ I shall probably never see her again ; she will soon 
forget that unlucky meeting.” 

But Mrs. Hartwood was a person who never forgot. 
A scandal was the very breath of her nostrils ; an un- 
kind or slanderous story, cooked and recooked again, a 
dish of which she never grew weary, and she had the 
most tenacious memory in the world. 

So the five years slipped away one after the other 
peacefully and uneventfully to the Forresters of Marsh- 
lands. 

Marshlands, as its name denotes, lies low amongst the 
water-meadows across which the river Laze winds a 
slow and sluggish stream. They are fine pastures, 
those green moist meadows that surround the low 
rambling old house on every side, and they are let, every 
inch of them, to the surrounding farmers, whose horses 
and cattle are dotted about over them in countless num- 


48 


A BAD LOT. 


bers all through the long summer months. In the winter 
time, when the Laze overflows its borders, and when 
the floods are out all over the flat wide plains. Marsh- 
lands is a damp and dreary place ; but when the lush 
green grass grows thick and sweet, and the big-eyed 
cows are munching their way across the flower-studded 
pastures, then the level lands have a certain charm of 
their own. 

The sunsets seem redder and fuller across the sad fen 
country ; there are fine effects of clouds, storm-tossed 
and orange-edged, of skies that are flushed with the 
crimson gladness of dawn, or pale with the trembling 
opal hues of the dying day. 

Nell loved the scenery of her home ; there was a sense 
of space and vastness in those broad green flats ; they 
seemed to carry her thoughts onwards and outwards to 
the sea — to the edge of the world — to the great and 
illimitable spaces of Eternity itself 

She was the only one in the tumble-down old house 
on the Laze to whom such thoughts ever came. Marsh- 
lands might be silent and desolate from without, but 
within it was always full of life and commotion. They 
were “ happy-go-lucky,” but they were never sad or dull 
at Marshlands. What matter if the butcher and the 
grocer clamoured for their money, or the man for the 
quarter’s rates sat awaiting his dues in the hall, or the 
banker in Fenchester wrote terrible things concerning 
Mr. Forrester’s overdrawn account? Was there not 
always somehow a way out of the worst of the difficul- 
ties? Mr. Forrester himself took it all very easily and 
good-temperedly, for there was generally some kind 
friend whom he could waylay, some little dodge or other 
by which he could manage to raise a little ready money ; 
or, when the worst came to the worst there would be 
the frantic rush up to Londou, the visit to Wimpole 
Street, the heartrending appeal to Lady Forrester, and 
then invariably the triumphant return home with the 
much-needed cheque that served to stop the clamorous 
mouths for a while and stave off the impending catas- 
trophe once more. 

And they none of them cared. There were times — 
very bad times these — when for days together the 


THE FORRESTERS OF MARSHLANDS. 


49 


butcher flatly refused to supply them with joints; and 
then Gordon Forrester, like a hunter in a primeval 
country, shouldered his gun manfully and went out to 
shoot rabbits, for the consumption of his family and 
household, across the fields, whose poor rents were his 
sole source of income. 

There was no other game of any sort or kind at 
Marshlands in these days, and even the rabbits were 
scarce, for the farmers shot them down too. But he 
always managed to bring something back, and they 
were all so joll}^ and good-tempered over it, the girls 
declaring they liked rabbits ever so much better than 
beef and mutton, so that the butcher’s vengeance fell 
flat and harmless. Once indeed, they were reduced to 
a sparrow pie for dinner, and they enjoyed it amazingly. 
There were some of the oflicers over from Fenchester 
that day; no one had ever eaten sparrow pie before; 
it was pronounced by one and all to be a dish of the 
most superlative excellence, and it formed a staple and 
time-honoured family joke for many a long day after- 
wards. 

When Mell was eighteen, being the only one of them 
all who had the faintest element of responsibility in her 
composition, she had made a great and conscientious 
effort to introduce a little order and economy into the 
family finances. She took the monetary difficulties 
bravely in hand, and for a whole six months she grap- 
pled with the bills and the debts in a truly energetic 
and enterprising fashion. 

But who but herself wanted order and economy at 
Marshlands ? They were perfectly happy as they were. 
Something always turned up to save them from bank- 
ruptcy and starvation. What a little goose Nell was, 
they said, to worry and fret herself over such stupid 
matters ! 

So after a time she grew disheartened and gave it up, 
and let herself go with the easy swimming tide of a 
patched-up insolvency, which, however long it may en- 
dure, is bound sooner or later to end in catastrophe and 
disaster. 

Dorothea Forrester, a tall large-made young woman, 
of Juno-like proportions, who by some freak of fancy 
c d 5 


50 


A BAD LOT. 


had always gone by the name of Dottie, was by this 
time twenty-eight, and had unfortunately outgrown her 
good looks. She had been very handsome at nineteen, 
but that large-typed beauty seldom lasts, and she had 
now become somewhat coarse in feature and bulky in 
figure. Yet Dottie, although perfectly conscious that 
her charms had waned, was not one whit less good- 
tempered and cheerful for the distressing fact. 

As to Millicent, the second sister, she had never had 
any pretensions to beauty, but she was a strong, active 
young woman, a fine horsewoman, and an excellent bil- 
liard and tennis player. She affected mannish attire, 
wore stiff-fronted shirts and stand-up collars and dark 
cloth skirts. She even cut her hair short like a boy’s, 
smoked cigarettes in public, and a short black pipe in 
the seclusion of her own bedchamber. Millie was alwa3*s 
followed about by a troup of pet dogs : a collie, a grey- 
hound, a rough terrier and a half-bred Irish setter being 
her constant companions indoors and out. Her canine 
famil}^ snapped and snarled at one another perpetually, 
and sometimes engaged each other in sanguinary battles, 
and then Millie cracked her dog-whip savagely over 
their heads, and often got her hands badly bitten in 
separating the combatants. 

Dottie was an inveterate gambler. She was deeply 
interested in racing matters, and had money on every 
event in England. Oddly enough, she was extraordi- 
narily successful in these ventures, and many a time 
the family exchequer had been opportunely replenished 
by her winnings. As to Gordon Forrester, he was al- 
ways the same : weak, careless and irresponsible — taking 
things as they came happily and good-humouredly, and 
not troubling himself about the future, or ever stopping 
to I’eflect that at his death the house, that sheltered him 
for his lifetime only, would have to go to a distant cousin, 
and that his daughters must then be turned out of it, 
penniless and homeless. “ Sufficient for the day was the 
evil thereof,” to careless, graceless Gordon Forrester. 

He went on, smiling his way through life, borrowing 
money which he knew he could never pay back ; staving 
off his creditors by little doled out sops to stop their 
mouths, and believing himself all the time to be an un- 


THE FORRESTERS OF MARSHLANDS. 


51 


lucky and ill-used man, with all the world in a conspiracy 
against him, to get money out of him when he had not 
got any to give them. 

“ Those beggarly tradesmen !” he would say with 
virtuous indignation, “they ought to bo ashamed of 
annoying a gentleman as they annoy me. They are 
much better off than I am. Just look at that fellow 
Joines! Did you see his wife in church last Sunday 
with a new sealskin jacket on, and an ostrich feather in 
her bonnet ? and I know for a fact that he bought a new 
mare last week that cost him seventy-live guineas? and 
that fellow has the face to come badgering me for a 
miserable twenty pounds or so, for his beastly beef and 
mutton that was all eaten up a year ago! These people 
have no conscience at all — absolutely none! It’s the 
Eadical spirit, that is abroad in the country just now, 
that is the ruin of the lower orders. They are a rascally 
set, sir, one and all of them !” 

And so he went on, year after year, borrowing money, 
running up debts all round, and paying no one unless 
literally forced to do so, as he had always done ever 
since he had lived in Denshire. 

And perhaps considering all these things together: 
the father who had so little sense of honesty, the old 
story of the mother who had thrown so foul a stain of 
shame upon those she had deserted and betrayed, the 
daughters who gambled and smoked and flirted — for 
their flirtations with a long succession of subalterns of 
many regiments from the Fenchester barracks were 
assuredly not the least amongst the crimes laid to their 
charge — perhaps it was not on the whole very wonderful 
that Gordon Forrester and his daughters were in bad 
odour amongst the highly humdrum and respectable 
county families of Denshire, and that Marshlands and 
its inmates were either avoided as much as possible, or 
else actually tabooed altogether by the best of them. 

“ They are a bad lot,” the squires and squiresses would 
say to one another, with ominous shakings of the head ; 
“ how could we allow our nice well-behaved girls to asso- 
ciate with those Forresters ? It is much better to keep 
clear of the whole family altogether.” 


52 


A BAD LOT. 


CHAPTER YI. 

Nell’s new lover. 

And now all at once there came about a great and 
wonderful thing, that shook the whole family down to 
its very foundations. 

Nell Forrester became engaged to be married I No 
event of such magnitude had as yet occurred in the 
family annals — nothing that they any of them remem- 
bered had ever happened so astonishing and so momen- 
tous. 

There arose about her a perfect storm of excitement, 
a chorus of congratulations, a veritable tumult of jcy 
and thanksgiving — it seemed as though the whole family 
was going out of its senses with delight. 

Nell herself was the most unmoved of them all. It 
had all taken place so quickly, with such a bewildering 
suddenness, that she had hardly realized or understood 
what was coming to pass until she found herself en- 
gaged. Even now she could hardly understand it. 

It seemed only yesterday that they had all three gone 
over to the ball at Fench ester, which their friends and 
allies, the officers of the 110th, were giving in return 
for the many civilities shown to them in the neighbour- 
hood. It was only the third ball 'which Nell had ever 
been to. She had 'worn a white muslin dress that had 
once been Millie’s ; it was not particularly fresh, or new- 
fashioned, and she was very conscious of its shortcomings. 

The room had been very crowded. It was a marvel 
to Nell that anybody should have singled out her own 
insignificant self amongst all the crush of smartly-dressed 
women who were present, and it had been a little sur- 
prise to her when their friend Mr. Drake, of the 110th — 
“Ducky,” as he was always called — brought up a tall 
smooth. shaven young man with serious eyes and intro- 
duced him to her with the words : 

“ Here is my friend, Mr. Cecil Roscoe, who has been 
moving heaven and earth for an hour to get introduced 


NELLIS NEW LOVER. 53 

to you, Miss !N'ow please give him a dance, and 

then I shall be left in peace.” 

“ It is quite true,” said Mr. Eoscoe, with a little laugh, 
when he was left standing by NelFs ride. “ I’ve been 
pestering everybody I knew in the room to get an intro- 
duction to you.” 

“ To me ?” repeated Hell in surprise. 

“ Yes ; but, oddly enough, I couldn’t find anybody who 
knew you. At last I ran Drake to earth, coming out of 
the supper-room with his partner on his arm. I wasn’t 
going to lose sight of him, so I dogged his footsteps, like 
the villain of a transpontine melodrama, till I caught 
him free at last, and then we couldn’t find you. I have 
been hunting for you all over the room.” 

Hell did not say much, but she wondered why he had 
taken such pains to know her. She was not in the least 
vain — ^very beautiful women seldom are — besides which 
she was painfully conscious of the shabbiness of her 
toilette. That old-fashioned muslin frock, indeed, had 
weighed considerably upon her mind. Surely in all that 
brilliantly-dressed crowd there must be many girls whom 
this London man might have found more worth his while 
to dance with than herself But he danced with her 
many times after that, and he danced with no one else. 

That was the beginning of it. Then her father, to 
whom Mr. Drake had also introduced him, invited him 
to Marshlands to lunch on the following Sunday. 

He came with sundry others over from Fenchester. 
They were a large party at lunch, and there was much 
noisy laughter and many jokes of a somewhat foolish 
nature. Mr. Eoscoe sat next to her. Hell did not talk 
loud and scream with laughter as her sisters did, neither 
did she smoke cigarettes with her coffee, or call the 
young men present by their nicknames. All these 
things offended Cecil’s taste abominably, as also did the 
badly-ordered and badly-cooked lunch — the wine that 
was execrable, the general scramble for food, everybody 
jumping up and helping themselves indiscriminately 
from the table or sideboard in a casual fashion. Then 
there were the dogs, who prowled round the room, beg- 
ging unreprovedly for scraps and bones, which they re- 
tired to devour beneath the visitors’ feet. Cecil Eoscoe, 

6 * 


54 


A BAD LOT. 


who was fastidious to a fault, and who had always been 
accustomed to everything of the best, to daintily-cooked 
dishes and a welha})poiDted table, and to noiseless ser- 
vants who waited like clockwork, was not at all favour- 
ably impressed by all that went on around him during 
this noisy and disorderly lunch. Yet for all that, his 
strong attraction to Nell remained unabated. She 
seemed to him to he so unlike all the rest, so superior 
to all her surroundings ; she was like a flower, he thought, 
set in a garden of weeds. 

Towards the end of that terrible meal there arose all 
at once a wild commotion. The collie and the Irish 
setter, having come to a disagreement over a cutlet bone, 
had flown with deafening howls and yells at each other s 
throats. 

In a moment everybody sprang to their feet, the battle 
was raging underneath the table, Millie flung herself 
headlong under the tablecloth, with an adventurous sub- 
altern after her, in order to drag out the delinquents. 
Frantic cries arose on every side : 

“ Catch hold of his tail. Poppet.” 

“ It’s all Snap’s fault — hold down his head. Ducky.” 

“ Fetch the dog-whip, Dottie ; it’s hanging up in the 
hall, or here, give us the hearth brush, quick!” 

“ Laddie has got him by the leg. Let go. Laddie, let 
go! Mind your hand. Poppet. Give it him hard !” 

Then followed thumps and shouts, interspersed with 
further howls and barks from the angry combatants, 
who lay locked together in a struggling mass on the 
carpet. 

Cecil Eoscoe threw a helpless glance at Nell, he looked 
so utterly wretched that she laughed — dog fights were 
nothing at all new to her ; they were constantly taking 
place between Millie’s pets. 

“ Isn’t it a hullabaloo !” she said to him aside. “ Millie 
will have the dogs in the room, and she always makes 
this commotion over it when they fight ; but they never 
really hurt each other. Snap is a cur at heart, and 
Laddie has no teeth to speak of. But you must be quite 
deafened, Mr. Eoscoe, by all this noise. If you have 
done lunch, shall we go out ?” 

He assented eagerly, and they slipped out of the room 


NELL'S NEW LOVER. 


55 


together. The last Cecil saw of the battle was Millie 
hanging on to the collie’s tail, whilst the young gentleman 
whom, she addressed as “ Poppet” tugged violently at the 
appendage of the irish terrier. Dottie, meanwhile, stood 
over them, slashing away savagely with the dog-whip, 
assisted by the devoted Ducky, who was flourishing the 
hearth broom; and Cordon Forrester, laughing heartily 
at the whole scene, was standing looking on with his 
back to the fireplace. As a further detail, it may be 
mentioned that the tablecloth had been half dragged off 
the table in the struggle, and some of the crockery and 
spoons and forks lay on the floor. 

After this veritable pandemonium, how delightful it 
was to get into the silence and peace outside, with the 
fresh air of the garden on his brow and with Nell by 
his side ! It was a lovely afternoon in the last of Sep- 
tember, balmy and sunny as June itself. The dahlias 
and chrysanthemums and Michaelmas daisies stood up 
in long gay rows along the garden borders, and there 
was a dash of yellow and orange in the sweeping boughs 
of the lime trees that bordered the path. 

“ I do wish,” said Nell, turning to him with a little 
effort at apology, “ that Millie would shut up the dogs 
at meal times, and that Dottie would not make quite so 
much noise. They are such dear good girls, my sisters, 
but I am afraid you must think us a very rowdy lot, Mr. 
Eoscoe.” 

He turned upon her with a look of mingled tenderness 
and admiration. 

“ But you,” he said, and there was a sort of suppressed 
break in his voice, “ you are different.” 

He was not in the least like Yane Darley — in fact, no 
two people on earth could be more widely dissimilar — 
yet at that moment Cecil Eoscoe reminded her of him. 

The look in his eyes as he spoke those few words was 
a look that she had seen before, on the deck of the 
“ Water Witch,” when Yane Darley had told her that 
he loved her. She had not known what it meant then, 
but she knew now. 

Her heart began to beat a littlo with unwonted ex- 
citement. 

“You won’t care to come again to such a rackety 


56 


A BAD LOT. 


household, I am afraid, Mr. Eoscoe,” she continued, with 
a slight laugh, in order to cover her confusion. 

“ On the contrary, I was just going to ask you if I 
might come again next Sunday — not to lunch, but 
afterwards ? I could walk over from Fenchester. There 
is — a man there — at the Cavalry Barracks — I don’t think 
you know him,” he went on vaguely and altogether men- 
daciously ; “ he has asked me to stay with him next 
Sunday, and if I do, may I come over to Marshlands?” 

Re did come down to Fenchester again — whether to 
stay with his friend at the Cavalry Repot or at the 
George Hotel in the High Street was not clearly ap- 
parent. But, anyhow, he turned up at Marshlands in 
time to go out for a walk by ^^eH’s side, with the re- 
mainder ot the family, subalterns, dogs and all, far ahead 
of them. And the third Sunday he came again, this 
time uninvited and unexpected. 

It was after this third visit that Miss Forrester said 
to her father confidentially : 

“Look here, Gordie,” — the elder girls were in the 
habit of calling their father by his Christian name — “ 1 
am not very sharp about these things, but it strikes me 
that Mr. Cecil Eoscoe is after Nell.” 

“You don’t say so, Lottie? God bless my soul, what 
makes you think it?” 

“Haven’t you noticed that he has come here three 
Sundays running, you dear old stupid?” 

“ But, Lottie, my love, that is nothing wonderful. 
These young fellows — Lrake and Popham, and a host 
of them — they are always here, it seems to me — a dozen 
times in the week, as well as on Sundays.” 

“Ah, but this is quite different. Mr. Eoscoe comes 
down all the way from London, and when he is here he 
speaks to nobody else but Nell. He sits by her, he 
walks by her, and he looks at her as if he could eat her. 
And I am quite certain he means business, Gordie. You 
see he is not our sort at all — not in the least like Lucky 
and Poppet and all the others — and he doesn’t care for me 
or Millie at all, I think, only for Nell. I expect the rest 
of us are too go-ahead for him — these barristers are 
always horribly prim and prudish, not a bit like the 
soldier boys — but then, when they do sit down tight and 


NELL'S NEW LOVER. 


57 


square and look at a girl as this chap looks at Nell, I 
expect then there is* no nonsense about it. This Mr. 
Eoscoe means to marry Nell, if I’m not mistaken.” 

“ My dear Dottie, you astonish me I” 

“Well, it is rather astonishing, isn’t it, for nobody 
ever wanted to marry Millie or me, which is a pity, as 
we are all so poor. I suppose no one ever fancied us 
in the light of wives, although we are all very well to 
laugh and lark with. However, it’s past praying for 
now with Millie and me — we’ve outstayed our market — 
but Nell might just as well marry if she gets a chance.” 

“ Certainly, certainly. Dear me, little Nell ! I never 
thought about such a thing ! It would be a good thing 
for her to have a husband and a home of her own — 
I could go up and stay with her — and perhaps,” his 
thoughts running on riotously ahead, “I daresay, if he’s 
a good sort of chap, he might let me have a little ready. 
I am sure he wouldn’t mind helping an aged father-in- 
law to silence that impudent fellow, Thompson, who has 
sent in his miserable bill again, for the third time, this 
morning.” 

“ We mustn’t count our chickens before they are 
hatched, Gordie,” counselled Dottie prudently. “The 
first thing to do is to secure him.” 

“ Ah, yes, certainly, my love ; but what can we do ?” 

“Well, I think you might write and invite him down 
to stay here from Saturday to Monday next. I know 
the name of his club ; just drop him a line there and 
ask him — I feel sure it would bring matters to a head 
if he stopped in the house.” 

“ But, my dear Dottie, wouldn’t he find it very uncom- 
fortable, and very dull too ? You see, I haven’t got any 
shooting now, unless it’s rabbits and sparrows. We have 
got nothing to offer Mr. Eoscoe.” 

“We have got Nell,” said Dottie with a laugh; and 
the invitation was sent. 

As a matter of course, it was accepted, and Cecil Eos- 
coe arrived at Marshlands on the Saturday morning in 
time for lunch, at which meal, out of consideration for 
the impending event — which by this time was well in 
the atmosphere of the house— there were neither dogs 
nor subalterns in the room. 


58 


A BAD LOT. 


That same afternoon he spoke to her, when, by some 
fortuitous and not altogether accidental combination of 
family arrangements, he found himself left alone in the 
library with her. 

She was hardly surprised, for she had known, even 
better than Dottie did, that he was in love with her, 
and that it must come to this ; but she had not expected 
him to say anything so soon, and the suddenness of it 
alarmed and disquieted her. 

She begged him to give her a little time, a few hours 
even, to reflect and to think it over, and he told her at 
once that he would not ask for an answer until the fol- 
lowing evening. 

She went upstairs to her own room and flung herself 
dejectedly into an arm-chair, and she thought about 
Yane Darley! 

Kot that she regretted him, or wished him back in 
the least, but only that she remembered so well exactly 
how all that he had said had affected her. 

How different it was to this ! There had been a 

quick response within her own heart then, to those other 
long-ago words of love 1 A breath of Eden in the air, a 
touch of that feu sacre, wdthout which the draught of 
love is but a flat and tasteless thing. Why could she 
not feel all this now? 

Yane Darley was, no doubt, an unprincipled black- 
guard, who had meant nothing right or honest towards 
her, and Cecil Eoscoe was a good and honourable man — 
a lover who loved her sincerely, wdio was ready and eager 
to make her his wife in the sight of God and man, and 
who would certainly be the best and truest of husbands. 

Yet Yane Darley had touehed an answering chord 
within her, whilst Cecil Eoscoe left her cold and unre- 
sponsive ! 

The door opened softly and Dottie, with her hat on, 
came quickly in. 

“ Well,” she said breathlessly, brimming over with ex- 
citement and curiosity, “ W ell ? have you got any news 
for us, Hell? Has he spoken? Is it all right ? Millie 
is talking to him downstairs — one of us had to stop 
with him — but she won’t dare to question him, and we 
are dying to know. Hell. Has he spoken yet?” 


NELL'S NEW LOVER. 


59 


“If you mean has Mr. Koscoe asked me to marry 
him,” answered Nell dully, “ yes, he has, but ” 

Dottie was down on her knees beside her in an instant, 
hugging and kissing her frantically. 

“ Oh, dear little Nell, how delightful ! Oh, I am so 
glad ! A thousand million congratulations to you, dar- 
ling Nell.” 

“ Oh ! but, Dottie, I haven’t made up my mind at all ; 
1 don’t know; I am to think it over; 1 am not at all 
Bure that I like him well enough to marry him.” 

“ Oh, Nell ! don’t be such a little fool ! You must like 
him enough ! Why, you might never get another chance ! 
Don’t, for heaven’s sake, throw it away. Just look at 
Millie and me; growing old and losing our looks, and 
never a ghost of a husband for either of us ! And if 
you marry Mr. Eoscoe, you will live in London, and we 
could come and stay with you, and perhaps in London 
we might meet somebody, for we shall never get a hus- 
band down here, you know, any one of us. We know 
nobody but the soldier boys, and they are all as poor as 
rats, bless ’em ; but in London we might get a few 
chances, and then, Nell, do think what a relief it would 
be to poor papa to get even one of us off his hands ; we 
should all be able to manage so much better with one 
less to be clothed and fed.” 

And it was by these and other arguments of a like 
nature that they had talked her over. 

All that Dottie said was perfectly true and perfectly 
sensible, and her father and Millie, who subsequently 
each had long private talks with her as well, only said 
much the same thing in other language. Millie dwelt 
much on Mr. Eoscoe’s personal qualifications; he was 
young, he was nice looking, “ Ducky” had told her that 
he was very clever, and would be sure to get on in his 
profession and make his way in the world, and was it 
not patent to the meanest capacity that he was desper- 
ately in love with her? 

What more could Nell possibly want? 

Nell did not know what she wanted. And yet she 
did know quite well, in spite of all these unanswerable 
arguments, that she did not want Cecil Eoscoe. 

“ It isn’t, you know, as if he were old, or ugly, or dis- 


60 


A BAD LOT, 


agreeable,” urged Millie; ‘‘nobody could say that you 
married him for money, or any low reason of that kind, 
and he is very nice, I am sure.” 

“ Yes, 1 suppose so.” 

“ Of course he wouldn’t suit me,” she went on, frankly, 
“ and I don’t suppose I should suit him ; I like men to 
bo horsey and doggy, and to have a little ‘go’ about 
them. Mr. Eoscoe is very quiet, certainly; but then 
that just suits you, Nell, for you are as quiet as a mouse. 
You and he would hit it off capitall3^” 

“ Very likely’,” assented Nell once more. 

“You cannot possibly say that you dislike him, Nell,” 

“ Oh no, I like him very much indeed!” she admitted 
heartily. 

“ Then do for goodness’ sake many him, and bring a 
little luck to us all ; for the sake of the rest of us at 
least. You ought to see that a respectable marriage is 
your duty.” 

Nell came to the conclusion that it was her duty, and 
not altogether a disagreeable duty either. It was pleas- 
ant to be loved and made much of, to be treated like a 
queen, and told that she was perfect and lovely. Oh 
yes, she liked him well enough, certainly. It was per- 
haps not love, for Nell knew what love was, but possibly 
love might never come her wa}^ again. That one brush 
of the angel’s wing, long, long ago, might be all that 
was ever to be vouchsafed to her of that dazzling vision. 
She did not love Cecil Eoscoe, but she came to the conclu- 
sion that she might be a very happy woman as his wife. 

“ I am afraid I am not good enough for you,” she said 
a little brokenly to him, when on the Sunday evening 
he had claimed his answer, and she had laid her hands 
mutely in his. 

“My darling, you are worlds and worlds too good for 
me !” he answered rapturously, taking her in his arms 
and holding her to his heart. “ When I think that I 
have won your love 1” 

“Oh, Cecil! I wish I could love you better, more as 
you deserve to be loved,” she faltered, striving a little to 
tell him the truth. 

“Dearest, love grows apace; I am not afraid,” an- 
swered her lover— ^ut Nell felt doubtful. 


A CLUB DINNER. 


61 


CHAPTER YII. 

A CLUB DINNER. 

The Honourable Julian Temple, as every one who 
will take the trouble to look him out in Hebrett’s Peer- 
age will discover, is the second son of the late, and only 
brother and heir-presumptive of the present Baron Cul- 
verdale, of Culverdale Castle, in the county of Berk- 
shire. Having inherited a small but sufficient fortune 
from .his mother, Mr. Temple could afford to be an idle 
man, and had always been so. His family had wished 
him to go into Parliament, but he had no personal am- 
bitions ; and he had, moreover, so great a scorn of the 
party tactics, the wire-pulling, the greed of self-advance- 
ment, to the total exclusion of all true and patriotic love 
for the country and the public weal, which are becoming 
more and more the distinguishing features of the modern 
politician, that he would have found himself totally out 
of place in the House of Commons. 

His pleasures were therefore his main occupation. He 
was a keen fisherman and an excellent shot, and he gave 
himself up to these sports — with the occasional addition 
of a day’s hunting — with the greatest avidity. His 
headquarters, oddly enough for a man so devoted to 
country pursuits, were in Piccadilly, where he owned a 
delightful suite of rooms overlooking the Green Park, 
from whence he made periodical expeditions to divers 
parts of England in search of the various sports to 
which he was addicted. 

One can do everything one wants to do, quite as well 
from London as from any other corner of the world, he 
was wont to say ; and if a man lives in town he keeps 
his brains awake and his wits keen, and does not degen- 
erate down to the level of a vegetable. 

For Julian Temple was not only a sportsman — he was 
a man of literary tastes as well. He liked to be within 
touch of the leading minds of the day, and within reach 
of the reading room of the British Museum. He cou- 

6 


62 


A BAD LOT. 


tributed frequent essays on social and scientific subjects 
to the best magazines, where under the nom de plume of 
“ Jute” he had won for himself an honourable place 
amongst men of thought and culture. He had even 
written a novel — a novel of rare power — that was eccen- 
tric and weird in plot, and singular and almost uncouth 
in phraseology — a novel that had transgressed against 
all the canons of romance, in that it had no heroine and 
no love in it, and that it did not end with the ringing of 
the wedding bells. This novel, published anonymously, 
had been slashed to pieces and covered with contumely 
by every reviewer in every newspaper in England ; but, 
nevertheless, it had run to a fifth edition ; and had he 
chosen to continue this branch of literary work, it would 
have laid foundations that would have carried him to a 
high place amongst the best novelists of the day. But 
it was characteristic of Julian that he never attempted 
to write another book of fiction. 

He was not, as has been said, in the least ambitious — 
his only aim was to please himself He was unmarried, 
and had every intention of remaining so. He used to 
say that he had never met the woman yet who would 
not bore him to death in three weeks ; and to be bored 
was his bete noire. 

“ I should get dead sick of her, you know,” he would 
say to his friends, when marriage was suggested to him ; 
“ it is the way I am constituted ; women amuse me for 
an evening — for a day, perhaps — but for longer they fill 
me with an intolerable weariness. To meet the same 
woman every day of my life would be insufferable to 
me. I do not think it would be fair to any lady to ask 
her to become my wife, for she would get so upon my 
nerves after a month that I should be capable of stran- 
gling her!” 

“Then you have never been in love, Julian?” said a 
friend who happened to be dining with him at the Wind- 
ham Club — the friend was Cecil Boscoe. 

“Never, I am happy to say I I do not even know 
what the words mean. It is probably the reason why I 
am incapable of writing a good novel.” 

There was a third guest at the table, who laughed 
drily a*t this remark. 


A CLUB DINNER. 


63 


“ My dear fellow, let me tell you then, that you have 
missed one of the greatest incentives to existence. Life 
without love is like an opera without a melody, like a 
garden without a flower — or worse still, like a dinner 
without champagne !” and here Major Pryor lifted his 
wine-glass between his eyes and the light of the rose- 
shaded candles. “ Let me give you a toast : — Here’s to 
woman — wilful, wayward, inscrutable, incomprehensible, 
capricious, captious — yet ever charming woman !” 

“ I join heartily in your toast, major,” said Cecil, raising 
his glass — his secret being yet young and untold to his 
two companions — I am an advocate of marriage as em- 
bodying the safest investment in real happiness that has 
yet been invented.” 

“ Oh, marriage ! marriage !” repeated Major Pryor 
depreciatingly, setting down his glass and pushing out 
his under-lip — “ marriage, my dear boy, is quite another 
matter! I was speaking of woman in the abstract. 
One can be in love with a dozen women — think of it ! 
the variety, the charm, the novelty! — but, alas! one can 
only marry one! But for this 1 should have been a 
Benedict many years ago. But one woman ! how de- 
pressing, how soul-enslaving! for where is there one 
woman to be found on earth in whom all the contra- 
dictory charms of her delightful sex can possibly be 
united ?” 

“Ah, you see, major, you agree with me after all — - 
that is exactly my ditflculty,” said Temple with a smile. 
“ To marry means to devote oneself to one woman ; 
therefore 1 say it is best to leave them all alone.” 

“ My dear Temple if there is the same theoretical basis 
in our opinions, there is a very radical and practical dif- 
ference in the deductions we each of us draw from them. 
Your arguments lead you to love none of them — mine 
have ever induced me to love them all !” 

“ Yet, joking apart,” pursued Cecil, who, in virtue of 
his three-days’-old engagement, took a new and personal 
interest in the subject of matrimony — for when a young 
man has pledged himself to this not unusual step in life, 
it is common for him to imagine that he is about to per- 
form a great and wonderful action, of which no man can 
over-estimate the solemn importance — “do you not be- 


64 


A BAD LOT. 


lieve that an early marriage — always supposing that his 
worldly means are such as to render the step not an im- 
prudent one — is the greatest and best safeguard that a 
young man can form against the troubles and tempta- 
tions of life — that, in short, to take a wife who will 
bring sweetness and graciousness and intelligent com- 
panionship into his home, is the strongest security of 
earthly happiness that a sensible man can have?” 

“ My dear Eoscoe, you are a young man and I am a 
middle-aged one,” replied Major Pryor with decision, 
“and I know men and women well, very well indeed — 
better, perhaps, than you do — and what I say to you is 
this ; an ideal marriage such as you mention, is like an 
ideal Liberal Government — the most beautiful theory 
that the imagination of man ever conceived. But you 
can’t get it, my dear sir, you can’t get it! Human 
nature w'on’t run to it. And if a man rushes into mar- 
riage with a woman he knows nothing about — a pretty 
creature, perhaps, who has caught his fancy and captured 
his senses — it is self-evident that in ninety-nine cases out 
of a hundred she must turn out to be totally different to 
that which he has supposed her to be, and there he 
is, poor fellow, tied and bound for life to her I That’s 
why I say to you young men — ‘ Look before you leap.’ 

Marriage is a d d serious thing, Eoscoe. A man 

should know beforehand, not only all about the woman 
herself, but all about her family and their tastes and 
tendencies. There are certain things that are frequently 
hereditary — petty vices, faults of temper, moral obliqui- 
ties — that are almost certain to reappear at stated inter- 
vals in successive generations. Let a man be quite sure 
that his future wife has a clean record in the past lives 
of her progenitors — let him, at least, be forewarned as 
to her possible failings and v eaknesses, ere he commits 
the irrevocable folly of binding himself to her for the 
rest of their natural lives.” 

During the latter portion of this speech Cecil had 
been drawing patterns with his fork on the table-cloth. 
It was during the pause between the ending of the 
dinner and the arrival of the coffee. Major Pr^’or’s 
harangue had started lightly enough, but he had struck 
a more serious note in his concluding words; they im- 


A CLUB DINNER. 


65 


pressed the younp^er man more than he would have 
cared to admit. There seemed to be an echo in them of 
Mrs. Torrens’ words of ill-omen : 

“Remember that these things are in the blood, and 
reappear in families down to the third and fourth gen- 
erations,” she had said. 

Was it not in substance exactly what Major Pryor 
was saying now ? 

“ Yet one bad instance should not surely make one 
condemn a whole race !” he said to himself, a sense of 
justice struggling within him with a sense of disquiet- 
ing uneasiness ; “ and for the life of me I can’t make 
out why the Fenshire people are so down upon the 
family !” Then suddenly a strange fancy came into his 
head. Major Algernon Pryor was a very well-known 
man in London society ; he was probably sixty-five, but 
he was so well preserved and so well got up that he 
looked barely fifty. Yet his recollections carried him 
far back to the beginning of the present reign. For 
many years his well-known figure, trim and slight and 
faultlessly dressed, had haunted day by day the well- 
known purlieus of Pall Mall and Piccadilly, and he was 
supposed to be a veritable walking encyclopjedia con- 
cerning the histories and doings of his fellow-creatures 
for over a quarter of a century. His lynx eyes had 
watched, and observed, and made notes of many things 
that other people less observant might not have re- 
marked. There are, indeed, many facts and many 
doings that a persistent perambulation of the sunny 
sides of Piccadilly, St. James’s Street and Pall Mall, can 
bring home to, and impress upon a thoughtful mind. 
Major Pryor had not been at all slow to take notes of 
all these interesting matters. And that which he noted 
he very seldom forgot. He knew the family history of 
everybody who had a family or a history worth knowing 
about. He could tell you without a moment of hesita- 
tion, who had married who, and what had become of all 
their younger sons and daughters for the last thirty 
years. He had a memory for scandals and for gossip 
that was positively astonishing. Divorces, elopements, 
bankruptcies, breach of promise cases, seemed to be 
stored up in his mind, labelled and ticketed and dated, 
e 6* 


66 


A BAD LOT. 


all ready to be produced as good as new at the shortest 
notice. And to do him justice, he never invented or ex- 
aggerated; his information was generally correct, and 
thoroughly to be depended on. It was with a swift 
recollection of all this, that, upon an impulse of the 
moment, Cecil Eoscoe said to him suddenly : 

Look here, Major Pryor, you are one of those men 
who know everything and everybody. I wonder if you 
can tell me anything about some people of the name of 
Forrester ?” 

It must be recollected that neither of the two men 
at the table had been informed of Cecil’s engagement. 
Pryor, indeed, was only an acquaintance, to whom ho 
would hardly have mentioned it ; but as the major was 
going on after dinner to keep some social engagement, 
Cecil’s purpose had been to tell his news to Julian 
Temple, who was an intimate and valued friend, after 
the older man’s departure. 

Nothing pleased Major Pryor better than to be con- 
sulted upon a point of personal history. He put down 
his coffee cup at once, adjusted his eyeglass into his eye 
and addressed himself with interest to the subject. 

“ Forrester, did you say ? Oh, dear me, yes, I knew 
them all. There were the Forresters of Killmaney, who 
were the Irish branch, and the Forresters of Eingwood, 
who intermarried. ‘William Forrester of Eingwood, 
grandfather of the present man — was in Parliament, 
and was made a baronet when Lord John Eussell’s gov- 
ernment went out. Of the Killmaney branch there 
were three or four sons, but I don’t know that any of 
them are alive now. There was one who was drowned 
at sea, and two others who died in divers ways, and I 
used to know the youngest, poor Jim Forrester, of the 
60th, who was killed in the Soudan, very well indeed — a 
very nice chap. The present baronet. Sir Eobert, used 
to be a good sort of fellow ; he married a Miss Walters 
— awful ugly woman, with a nose like a rhinoceros. He 
married her for her money, and I hear she keeps him in 
fearful order.” 

“ Is there not an old Lady Forrester also ?” 

“ Yes, yes, certainly, I am coming to her. The Dow- 
ager, Bob’s mother, she lives in Wimpole Street— a 


A CLUB DINNER. 


67 


painted old Jezebel ! I had tea with her one day last 
week. There isn’t anything that old woman doesn’t 
know, and wouldn’t do ! She’d give Beelzebub a stone 
and a beating! But she’s capital company I” 

“And she has another son, has she not?” 

“ Yes, to be sure. Gordon was her youngest son. He 
was a wonderfully good-looking chap ; ‘ Handsome Gor- 
die’ as he was called. All the women used to run after 
him when he was a lad. But he made a mess of his life 
and disappeared from society a long time ago. I haven’t 
seen him about for years. I believe he lives somewhere 
down in the Fen country, at a tumble-down old place 
left him by some distant cousin, to whose family it ulti- 
mately reverts. He can’t have got a penny to spend on 
the place and, I hear, has to let oif all the land up to the 
very front door of the house, and his mother told me 
that the place is going to rack and ruin. After he came 
into it and went to live there, a Mrs. Gordon suddenly 
appeared on the scenes, and it all came out that he had 
been married privately for some years back to a bur- 
lesque chorus girl. He committed the folly of taking 
his wife down to Fenshire and of trying to get the 
neighbourhood to receive her. But of course the women 
wouldn’t so much as look at her; your respectable women 
are so charitable, you know! AVell, perhaps they were 
right as it turned out, for after a few years the poor 
woman got tired of it, I suppose, for she bolted with 
somebody — I forget who — and a good riddance for Gor- 
don, I should say. By the way. Temple, I wonder you 
don’t remember him, although of course he must be a 
good ten or twelve years your senior. He used to be 
about a great deal with a man called Harley — a yachting 
man. Surely you remember Yane Harley? He and 
Gordon Forrester were inseparable at one time.” 

“ It can scarcely be a recommendation to any man to 
have been a friend of Colonel Yane Harley, from all I 
have been told of that gentleman !” said Julian rather 
contemptuously. 

“ Oh, there I differ from you. Temple ! I knew Harley 
well at one time. He was a splendid chap, generous and 
kind-hearted to 'a fault; he would do anything in the 
world for a friend ; no one in trouble ever went to him 


68 


A BAD LOT. 


in vain, and he was the most genial host and the most 
delightful companion in the world. I don’t suppose you 
could have found a man who had more friends than 
Yane Darley in all England ; he was the most popular 
man of his day. He had only one fault ” 

“Ah! and that one fault to my mind counteracts all 
the rest I” interrupted Temple with severity. 

“ Oh, my dear fellow,” and Major Pryor chuckled a 
little to himself, “we can’t all of us be anchorites and 
saints like you ; your school of morality is — well, really 
a leetle too strict for the present generation. It is not 
given to all men to be tempted alike, you must remember. 
Although, of course, I am bound to admit that poor old 
Yane was not altogether immaculate in his dealings with 
women. His love affairs, I will frankly state, were num- 
berless, and some of them at least were discreditable to 
him.” 

“ He was an unprincipled libertine,” said Julian with 
emphasis. “ Hot one of his apologists, my dear Pryor, 
has ever, it seems to me, been able to get beyond that 
fact.” 

The major shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly. 

“You ought to bear in mind,” he replied, “that he 
made a very unfortunate start in life. He was married 
at two-and-twenty to a woman who was wholly uncon- 
genial to him, and they parted by mutual consent within 
the year. That sort of thing, you will allow, handicaps 
a man pretty severely. The marriage was a patched up 
affair from the first, a sort of family arrangement, and 
they did not get on in the least. She was one of your 
good women who see crimes in everything, and who 
drive more men to the devil than any other class of 
women upon earth. She thought everything wicked; 
his yacht, his hunters, his shooting. She wanted him to 
sell everything and give the proceeds to the poor. She 
looked upon theatres as the portals of the infernal 
regions, and upon race meetings as foregatherings of 
incarnate fiends. When she found that poor old Yane 
wouldn’t give up everything and adopt her peculiar 
views, she told him that she couldn’t possibly imperil 
her immortal soul by continuing to dwell in the tents 
of Belial. So she went over to America and founded a 


A CLUB DINNER. 69 

Society for the suppression of vice in young men. She 
is doing it out there to this day, I believe.” 

Cecil Roscoe sat smoking his cigarette and listening- 
It was the first time he had ever heard of the name of 
Yane Darley; it would have been happy for him if he 
had never heard it again. He was not particularly in- 
terested in the sins of this Colonel Yane Harley, and he 
did not want the conversation to drift away from the 
Forresters. He took advantage of the first pause in the 
major 8 reminiscences to remark : 

“Mr. Gordon Forrester has daughters?” 

“Ah, yes, very likely; in fact 1 remember, now you 
mention it, that the old lady has spoken to me of her 
grand-daughters, but I know nothing about them my- 
self, although I fancy, from what she said about them, that 
they are not a particularly straight-laced lot. In fact, 
she was just going to tell me about some adventure or 
other that one of them had once, some dreadful scrape 
she said it was ; connected with some fellow. I suppose 
it was something of a spicy nature, for the old reprobate 
laughed and winked a good deal — but unluckily some one 
came in just as she was beginning to relate the story to 
me ; so, unfortunately, I never heard it.” 

Cecil’s colour rose ; he put down his coffee cup into 
the saucer, and his hand trembled as he did so. 

“ I am sorry you did not hear the story, major, it 
might have been — of use to me.” 

“ Of use ?” repeated the major laughingly ; “ not much 
use^ I fancy, though I dare say it would have amused 
you.” 

Cecil laughed a little harshly. 

“ I ought to tell you, major, that I have an object be- 
yond idle curiosity, in making these inquiries of you con- 
cerning these people. The fact is, a very great friend of 
mine — the most inti mate friend, in fact, that I have in 
the world — whose welfare I have very much at heart — 
is engaged to be married to one of Gordon Forrester’s 
daughters.” 

Major Pryor had got up to wish his host good-night. 
When he had made his adieux to him, he turned and 
faced Cecil Roscoe squarely. 

“ My dear Roscoe, if you have your intimate friend’s 


70 


A BAD LOT. 


welfare so keenly at heart, you can just give him my 
advice upon the subject. Tell him to go to Timhuctoo 
or to New South Wales, or anj^where else that will put 
a wide berth between himself and a daughter of Gordon 
Forrester’s. No man in his senses should take a wife 
from such a stock as that. They are a bad lot, and 
that’s my last word about them, and you can tell your 
friend that I said so.” 

Cecil remained staring in front of him in gloomy 
silence for several minutes after Major Pryor’s depart- 
ure. At last Julian Temple, who was watching him 
attentively, leant across the corner of the table and 
touched him on the arm. 

“ What’s wrong, Cecil?” 

Cecil started, and looked up at his friend with rather 
a vacant smile. 

“ Nothing much, old man — only — the major’s last re- 
marks are not very inspiriting. The fact is — the ‘inti- 
mate friend’ — doesn’t exist — it’s myself. I — am engaged 
to a daughter of Gordon Forrester’s.” 

Mr. Temple uttered no exclamation. He only ex- 
amined the end of his cigar in silence with deep atten- 
tion. 

“ Can you get out of it?” he said at last. 

“No — and, what is more, I don’t want to. The fact 
is. Temple, I love the girl.” 

“ I know nothing about love,” said Julian quickly — it 
was the second time he had made the same remark that 
evening — “ but I hope I know a little about honour, and 
I know that if a man cannot take a step of that kind 
without a moral descent, he had better stop short of it 
before it is too late.” 

“As there is a God above us, Julian,” said Cecil sol- 
emnly and fervently, “ I believe the girl to be as good 
and pure as an angel from heaven.” 

“ Then stick to her, Cecil, and God bless you.” 


^^THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LVTE.'^ 71 


CHAPTEE YIII. 

“the little rift within the lute.” 

Kell stood looking out of her bedroom window on 
the Saturday afternoon. From the upper windows of 
Marshlands House there could be seen, far away across 
the flat country, the fretted twin spires of Fenchester 
Cathedral, that shut up out of the dead level of the 
plain, tall and slender and pearly grey, against the sky. 
Kell was looking at them now — ^they were familiar to 
her from childhood. All her life she had looked out 
of the same latticed window of the same tiny bedroom, 
across the water meadows where the Laze wound its 
slow and sleepy way, trending away in graceful sweeps 
and curves towards the faint outline of the cathedral 
city in the distance. 

There was not a tree, not a shrub, not a clump of pol- 
lard willows in all the wide expanse, that she did not 
know and love — that had not been in some way con- 
nected with her dreams and her longings and her 
fancies. 

And now, she said to herself, she was going to leave 
them all ! How soon she could not tell — probably very 
soon. This long chapter of her life was to be closed, 
and a new story was to be begin. 

It was to her, like the adventuring of a ship into an 
unknown sea. Yet there was none of that gay glad 
confidence in her that should help to float the barque as 
she puts forth alone upon the waters of an untried 
ocean. Kell did not quite know how it was going to be 
wdth her; although she did not regret the step she had 
taken. Cecil had seemed to her to be an enthusiastic 
lover; his eagerness had infected her a little, his passion 
had almost carried her away. In that first flush of 
accepted love there had been something so ardent about 
his fervour, so boyish about his joy and gladness, that 
half her doubts and uncertainties had been swept away 
by the rush of it. 


72 


A BAD LOT. 


After all, she had said to herself, it is good to be loved 
like that ! good to be taken on trust — to be met with a 
faith that is so deliciously blind, with a trust so implicit 
and so entire. To refuse such a love — so rare, so pure, 
so true — would indeed be foolishness ! 

“And yet,” she said to herself aloud — “and yet the 
pity of it is, that with all this I don’t love him !” 

She was leaning out of the casement window waiting 
for him to come. 

It was “chill October.” The skies were grey and 
heavy, the fitful breeze was sad and rain-laden, the 
brown leaves whirled in little eddies along the garden 
paths. There had been a frost in the night, and since 
last week the blackened dahlia blossoms drooped their 
sodden heads towards the bosom of the cold sad earth, 
whilst even the bright colours of the chrysanthemums 
had paled and faded beneath the nipping finger of win- 
ter’s advance guard. 

Nell did not feel the cold— she was country-bred and 
inured to sudden changes of climate. And her heart 
was warm enough — warm and glad. “ He is a dear fel- 
low,” she said aloud, almost as though to impress it upon 
herself, “and he adores me! when I am his wife I shall, 
I am sure, be perfectly happy. Only, let us be married 
soon — as soon as he likes, for I don’t want to have too 
long a time to think about it. I might think too much. 
I might — I might change my mind !” 

Far away, down the straight white road, she saw the 
dog-cart that had been sent to meet him, and at the 
same time Dottie’s voice, in no softened accents, shouted 
out to her from below : 

“ First favourite romps in — come along down, Nell I” 

Then the wild barking of Millie’s dogs, and four canine 
bodies hurled themselves in a mass through the open 
hall door into the road. 

Nell ran lightly and gladly downstairs. She caught 
up her hat and jacket and put them on quickly as she 
went. 

“He has come by the early train, after all!” she 
thought, “ and wo shall have time lor a walk together 
before it gets dark.” 

In the hall, in which was the billiard table, Hottie and 


^^THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE.” 73 


Mr. Popham, of the 110th, were having a desultory game 
together, whilst Millie, attired in a well-worn habit, all 
ready for a scamper across the fields, stood tapping her 
boot with her riding crop on the door-step, and talking 
to a lanky young man on a still more lanky screw who 
awaited her outside. 

“ As soon as ever Nell’s mash arrives from the station 
I shall get my mare,” she was saying to this gentleman. 
“ I’ll tell Bill to put the pony on the pillar rein and to 
get the saddle on Bess at once. But you see. Captain 
Toulmin, nothing is of any importance in this house just 
now but Nell’s mash — he’s number one.” 

“ Oh, Millie,” remonstrated Nell, coming up behind her 
in time to hear the last words and blushing a rosy red 
with mingled confusion and vexation at the name applied 
to her lover. “ I do wish you wouldn’t talk like that.” 

“ My dear girl, it’s perfectly true. I assure you. Cap- 
tain Toulmin, that we’ve all gone clean out of our minds ; 
we’ve been standing mentally and morally on our heads, 
in fact, ever since last Sunday. It’s the first husband 
any one of us has caught — the first nibble, in fact, at 
the fly of our virgin charms. All you soldiers, you see, 
you are dear things, but you none of you want to marry 
us. It’s disheartening, you know, when we try so hard 
to please you. Now, why don’t you want to marry me. 
Captain Toulmin?” 

“ Oh, my dear Miss Millie,” and poor Captain Toulmin 
literally gasped, for he was a new-comer belonging to a 
regiment that had only just arrived at Fenchester, and 
was not quite so well accustomed to the Forresterian 
style of pleasantry as the habitues of the house, and he 
was a prosaic young man who took everything au grand 
serieux^ “ I — well really,” he stammered confiisedly, “ I 
should be only too proud and happy, don’t you know — 
only, of course, I am totally unworthy — quite unfit to 
aspire to such honour and happiness. I — I should never 
dare, you know.” 

“ Oh, well, you just get up your pluck and propose ; 
you don’t know what you can do till you try, and I give 
you my solemn word of honour that I’ll accept you on 
the spot, and, what’s more. I’ll marry you this day week 
in Fenchester Cathedral.” 


D 


7 


74 


A BAD LOT. 


The unfortunate captain looked for a moment at her 
as though he would have tumbled off his steed with 
terror, and Millie laughed her gay noisy laugh at the 
sight of his panic-stricken face. 

“ My dear Miss Millicent,” said the unfortunate young 
man, “ the fact is, I really can’t afford to get married — 
nothing on earth I should like better, I assure you, but 
I can’t afford it.” 

At which Millie laughed louder and longer than ever. 

“ Oh, you’ll be the death of me. Captain Toulmin !” 
she cried. “ I really think you are quite the funniest 
man I ever met. But peace, let us dissemble, here comes 
the son-in-law elect of the house. None of your larks, 
please, in the presence of Mr. Cecil Eoscoe ; he is an ex- 
ceedingly proper young man, and he would not approve 
of you at all.” 

The unfortunate Toulmin, who had quite failed to see 
the point of the joke, or why Millie considered him to be 
so very funny, but who felt somehow that he had escaped 
a grave peril, retired thankfully into the background, 
whilst a very shabby cart and a rough-coated pony, 
driven by the one groom of the establishment, in a 
livery coat of such amazing age and greasiness that it 
positively shone, drew up in style before the hall door 

Ten minutes later, Cecil, having got through the 
necessary greetings to the other members of his future 
wife’s famil}^ was glad to find himself walking by her 
side along the high road. 

“We will go up to the farm, I think,” said Nell, as 
they started. “We still call it the home-farm, you 
know, although papa had to let it years ago to a farmer 
named Wilkes ; they supply us still with milk and butter. 
Dottie and Mr. Popham were going into the village, so 
we won’t go that way ; she is going to telegraph about 
a horse she wants to back, and there go Millie and Cap- 
tain Toulmin across the hurdles,” and she pointed to a 
couple of riders scampering like mad creatures over 
hedges and ditches in the direction of the town. “ It 
will be quieter on the road to the farm.” 

They walked on almost in silence till they came to the 
bridge over the Laze. Here, that natural instinct which 
invariably makes people linger, and look over the parapet 


^^TIIE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE.^^ 75 


at the running water below, whilst crossing a bridge, 
caused them both to stop. 

With a woman’s ready intuition, Nell had been aware 
for some moments past that Cecil had something on his 
mind. When they came to the bridge she faced him 
smilingly as they leant together over the stream. 

“ Well, and what have you to say to me to-day, Cecil ? 
You are wonderfully silent.” 

“ I have a great deal to say to you,” he answered with 
rather a troubled brow. 

“ What is it ?” she asked quickly. “ You have told 
your mother, of course; what has she said?” 

“ Of course you must remember that I am an only 
child, and that my mother has always had an exagger- 
ated ideas of my value in the matrimonial market,” said 
Cecil, with an uneasy laugh. “ I daresay a royal princess 
or a Eothschild heiress would scarcely have satisfied her 
ambitions with respect to me !” 

“ Then she is not pleased at your engagement ?” said 
Nell, and her heart began to thump almost audibly. 
Nell knew all about her mother’s origin in these days, 
and although she, as well as her sisters, believed her to 
be dead, she was as well aware as any one else that the 
world treasures these unpleasant memories with an im- 
perishable ardour. 

Cecil was silent. He was truthful, and he could not 
conscientiously say that his mother was pleased. He 
was picking up the little bits of crumbling mortar from 
between the bricks, and dropping them one by one over 
into the turbid waters of the Laze. 

“Look here, Cecil,” said Nell at last, when the silence 
between them threatened to become almost awkward — 
“are you quite sure that you don’t agree with your 
mother, at the bottom of your heart ? I can quite see 
that I am not a good match for you. It isn’t only that 
I have no money — there are other things (we need not 
discuss them, you and I ; but I know them, and you 
know them) — well, sometimes I think that second 
thoughts are best ; and if since last Sunday you have 
changed your mind, and have come to take a different 
view of things ” 

“ Oh, Nell, Nell !” cried the young man, turning round 


76 


A BAD LOT. 


upon her sharply, with a ring of real pain in his voice, 
“ how can you think that I could change in a week ? 
Why do you say such a thing to me?” He took her 
hands into his and wrung them hard. “ Do you doubt 
my love so much as all that ?” 

He was her fervent lover once more; the implied 
threat of severance in her words had frightened him in 
earnest, for he loved her truly — only, he wanted to love 
her in his own way. 

Hell was melted — the look of pain in his eyes, the 
clutch of his hands upon hers real enough. 

“ Forgive me, Cecil,” she said penitently ; for that is 
always the essence of a woman’s nature — to beg for 
forgiveness from the man when he has committed the 
otfence! It was Cecil, not she, who had started the 
subject ; and yet it was she who rushed in and took all 
the blame. “ Forgive me !” she cried again. 

He was graciously pleased to do so. 

“ You don’t suppose, do you, that I only came down 
to Marshlands to-day in order to break otf our engage- 
ment? — I, who have been counting the days and the 
hours until I saw you again ! Look here. Hell; if you 
want any proof of the injustice of such a thought, let 
me show you what I have brought for you.” He drew 
a small parcel out of his pocket — a tiny box containing 
a ring — a half-hoop of glittering diamonds. 

Hell uttered a cry of delight. She had never possessed 
a ring in her life. He took her left hand in his and 
slipped the ring upon her third finger; then he lifted 
the hand to his lips and kissed it tenderly. It was 
altogether a lover-like little scene, and seemed for the 
moment entirely to efface the impression of those half- 
spoken words of trouble that had preceded it. 

As they stood thus side by side — she holding out her 
hand so as to admire the glittering circlet on her finger, 
with all a woman’s natural pleasure in a new trinket, 
and he looking down fondly and proudly at her — a red 
gleam of stormy sunset shot suddenly through a rift in 
the grey banked clouds to the west. The shaft of vivid 
light fell upon the girl, shining straight into her bright 
eyes and turning the bronze-brown of her hair into gold. 
The diamonds upon her hand leapt into ai sudden life, 


^^THE LITTLE RIFT WITUIN THE LUTE.^' 77 


emitting sparks of green and red and yellow in vivid 
pulsations, as though in answer to the dazzling message 
of the sunset ; and with them also those other diamonds, 
that she had worn for so many years, shot forth, too, 
their star-like rays from the bracelet upon her arm. 

Cecil noticed the tiny watch in its glittering setting 
for the first time. 

“ That is a lovely bracelet you have, Nell. Where did 
you get it ?” 

Half-a-minute’s pause. Nell lifted her wrist a little 
higher, and looked at it as though she, too, saw it for 
the first time. 

“ Shall I tell him — or not ?” went through her mind 
quickly. And the answer came almost instinctively. 
It would have been a very difficult story to tell of her- 
self — she was not at all proud of it — in fact, to a young 
man, even though he was her lover, such a story was 
almost impossible to repeat — there had always been a 
shame about it in her own mind — there would certainly 
have been anger and indignation in his. Why rake up 
so dark a chapter of her past ? Then, again — how, after 
such a recital, could she possibly account for having 
kept the watch and worn it ever since ? That intangible 
something in her own heart which connected the gift of 
graceless Yane Darley, not with himself at all, but with 
the shattered romance of her childish days, was a thing 
that would have been totally incomprehensible to most 
men, and more than all would it have been so to such a 
man as Cecil Eoscoe. 

“ Dottie says the stones are paste,” she answered, eva- 
sively, just to gain a moment of time; and then she 
added quite indifferenly, “ it was given me long ago by 
an old friend of my father’s.” 

Cecil dismissed the subject from his mind — he had just 
now other matters upon it which absorbed and troubled 
him ; so that he thought about Nell’s bracelet no longer. 

The red shaft of sunset grew pale in the western sky, 
and the lovers walked on together across the water 
meadows. 

Then at last Cecil approached the real difficulty that 
weighed upon him. 

“ I want you to be very sensible and reasonable, my 
7 * 


78 


A BAD LOT. 


dearest,” he began somewhat diffidently. “ You see my 
mother is almost ludicrously fond of me, and 1 want 
you to be patient with her, and to make allowances for 
her.” 

“ With the best intentions in the world, I don’t see 
what opportunity I have of doing so unless I make her 
acquaintance,” answered Nell, with a little laugh that 
was not exactly encouraging in its tone. Once more 
her quick instincts told her that there was something 
yet to come, behind the elaboration of these pream- 
bles. 

“That is exactly what I am coming to, darling. I 
want you to know her. I think — indeed, I feel certain 
— that directly she sees you she will love you. Who 
could help it, you know ?” 

“How and where is she to see me?” inquired Nell in 
a matter-of-fact voice, ignoring the last lover-like insinu- 
ation altogether. 

“Well, I thought perhaps you might come up to town 
for a day or two this week, could you not ?” 

“ Certainly, Cecil, if you wish it. Papa would be very 
glad to let me go. Where am I to stay ?” 

“I — I thought — your grandmother, perhaps, could 
receive you, could she not ?” 

Then there was no welcoming message from Cecil’s 
mother! Nell felt it bitterly — it seemed to make it all 
so difficult and so hard for her, if his mother did not 
hold out her hands in warmth and kindness to her! 
Nell had hoped that Mrs. Roscoe would have written or 
sent some kind message, and if she was to come to Lon- 
don, it would have seemed natural that she should have 
invited her to stay with her. 

“ I wish to goodness my mother had asked you to 
Rutland Gate,” broke in Cecil, as though divining her 
thought, “ for of course I should have liked you to be 
with her immensely ; but she did not suggest it. Still, 
if you are actually in London I am quite sure that she 
will call upon you and be kind, and we must trust to 
time to do the rest.” 

He looked so distressed and worried that Nell was 
sorry for him. After all, she reflected, it was not his 
fault. He had no doubt had a bad time of it with his 


“ THE LITTLE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE.'^ 79 

mother ; she would not make it worse for him by taking 
offence. She would try to be sweet and gentle and dip- 
lomatic generally, to please him and help him to make 
things smooth and straight. 

“ Oh, never mind about that, Cecil, dear,” she said 
quite brightly and pleasantly. “I daresay it was not 
convenient to your mother to invite me to stay in Eut- 
land Gate. I quite understand. And, besides, I really 
think it will be much better for me to go to granny’s. 
I can go to her quite easily. Moreover, there is my 
trousseau to see about,” she added, with a little blushing 
laugh. “ Granny has written to me, very kindly offering 
to give me my things, and so, as she is rather a tetchy 
old lady, I think she would be better pleased if I were 
to stay with her. I can arrange to go up to Wimpole 
Street on Thursday if you like, for, you know, the order- 
ing and fitting on of frocks is a matter of some time, 
and I may as well begin to see about them at once.” 

Cecil looked straight in front of him. There was, 
perhaps, a little sense of shame in his mind. Nell was 
not looking at him. She was stealing furtive glances at 
her new engagement ring. When he began to speak 
again she hardly listened to the first few words. 

“ It is precisely on that subject 1 wanted to speak to 
you, Nell — the subject of our wedding, I mean.” 

“ Yes ?” and Nell smiled confidingly and thought to 
herself, “ I must stand out for at least six weeks to get 
my things ready, whatever he may say.” 

“I don’t think you need trouble about your trousseau 
just at present, dear.” 

Nell looked up startled, and the hand, with its diamond 
circlet, fell rigidly down by her side. 

The fact is, my mother thinks,” he went on somewhat 
hurriedly, “ and I agree with her, that our engagement 
has been a very rapid affair. We have not known each 
other very long, have we? — in fact, we hardly know 
each other at all. It would be better, I am sure, that 
we should have a longer time to become mutually ac- 
quainted. We shall know our own minds ever so much 
better if we wait a little. It has all been so very sudden, 
has it not? And if we put our marriage off — say till 
Easter, we shall have all that time to learn to know one 


80 


A BAD LOT. 


another better. I have promised my mother, in short, 
that it will not take place before Easter.” 

There fell upon Nell’s heart a cold and paralyzing 
chill. It was not sorrow, certainly — it was not even dis- 
appointment or dismay; it was only a numb and deadly 
indifference. 

“ It will never take place at all!” was the thought in 
her heart, but she did not speak a word. She walked 
on by his side for some minutes in absolute silence, her 
eyes fixed upon the twin grey spires in the distance 
that had by this time very nearly faded away into the 
grey gloom of the evening sky behind them. 

“ It has turned very cold,” she said after a long time, 
with a little shiver. “ Let us go home.” 

“ But what do you say, Nell, dear? What do you say 
about it?” he asked uneasily, for her silence disturbed 
him. 

“Say? — oh, you mean about knowing each other 
better. Oh, yes, I think it most desirable, and we are 
learning to know each other better every hour, are we 
not ?” 

“And about our marriage taking place at Easter, 
Nell? You quite understand, do you not? And you 
will agree ?” 

“Oh, yes, of course. I will agree to anything you 
like, Cecil,” she answered indifferently. 

And they walked back towards the house in silence. 
This time there was no lingering on the bridge. 

“He is not in the least what I took him to be,” she 
said to herself. “ He has heard something horrid about 
us, and he is frightened. He is half-hearted, and cautious, 
and calculating. Oh, give me a blackguard who is in 
earnest I” she thought passionately and hotly. 

A very ill-regulated and reprehensible thought, surely. 
But then, as Major Pryor had said, the Forresters of 
Marshlands were a bad lot, and had, no doubt, natural 
leanings towards iniquity I 


WICKED OLD WOMAN IN WIMPOLE STREET. 81 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE WICKED OLD WOMAN IN WIMPOLE STREET. 

To any one not very much accustomed to London 
distances it seems a long way between Wimpole Street 
and Rutland Gate, more especially when the journey 
between the two is undertaken in the dark by a very 
nervous young lady by herself in a four-wheeled cab. 

Nell thought she would never come to the end of that 
racketty and draughty drive. She was on her way to 
dine in Rutland Gate and to be introduced to Cecil’s 
mother. Mrs. Roscoe and Mrs. Torrens had indeed left 
their cards upon her the day after her arrival in town, 
which cards Nell had been very sorry indeed to find 
lying upon the hall table when she came in from her 
walk. 

“ If only she had let me know?” she had cried with 
intense vexation when she had come in, “I would have 
stayed at home the whole afternoon to have seen her!” 

“Well, you wouldn’t have been any the nearer it for 
that, my dear,” answered her grandmother with a laugh ; 
“ for they did not even ask for you. They drove up 
together in the open carriage, both of them, Mrs. Roscoe 
with her silly weak face and receding chin, and that 
hateful Torrens woman, who has a nose like an eagle’s 
beak. I used to know them both as girls, and they were 
glad enough to come to my house in those days. I 
peeped at them from behind the muslin curtains. They 
never even asked if you were in ; they just shovelled in 
their cards and drove away.” 

“ Oh, grandmamma, how unkind of them 1” cried Nell, 
the tears of distress rushing into her lovely eyes. 

“Oh, you needn’t take it to heart, Nell!” said the old 
lady cheerfully. “It wasn’t meant as a slight to you. 
But catch either of those women putting her nose inside 
my door! They had just as soon face the devil in 
person, horns and hoofs and tad, than come up into my 
drawing-room. Selina Torrens is about the most hard- 

/ 


82 


A BAD LOT. 


hearted and ill-natured woman in London. But she sets 
herself up nowadays to he religious, and she looks down 
upon me as an unregenerate sinner, and that silly Louisa 
Boscoe does everj^thing her sister-in-law tells her to do. 
Oh, they are a nice couple, those two!” 

“ You make me very nervous, granny. How am I to get 
on with such people ?” said poor Hell, with a failing heart. 

“Why, just stand up for yourself, my dear, and hold 
your own. After all, you are not going to marry the 
man’s mother or his aunt!” 

Later on in the day came Cecil himself to call upon 
his lady love. And Cecil had asked for Lady Forrester, 
and had come upstairs to call upon her, in the most ap- 
proved and correct fashion. He found her very much 
what Major Pryor had described her to be — a made-up 
and rouged little old woman with a wig of fair curly 
hair, false teeth, and a still wonderful figure. She was 
not at all the sort of old lady that Cecil had been accus- 
tomed to, and the accounts of her wickedness and world- 
liness had made him secretly dread the interview. Yet 
he was bound to admit that she was extremely agreeable 
and cordial in her greeting, although he hardly knew 
whether to be amused or bewildered by her conversa- 
tion. When he was shown into the room. Lady For- 
rester was sitting alone. Hell did not happen to be 
present. The old lady was playing French Patience by 
herself upon a card table drawn up in front of her, with 
a reading lamp upon it. 

Lady Forrester did not lay down her cards, but she 
looked up at him over her gold-rimmed spectacles and 
held out a little wrinkled hand to him. 

“ Ah, so you are Hell’s young man ? I’m very pleased 
to see you; sit down where I can look at you. So you 
are engaged to be married to Hell, I hear. Well, Pm 
very glad of it. I suppose you really do mean to marry 
her, don’t you? You are not going to fight olf, 1 sup- 
pose ?” 

“ My dear Lady Forrester, how can you possibly im- 
agine such a dreadful thing of me?” cried Cecil, con- 
siderably taken aback by the strangeness of the question, 
which he hardly knew whether to regard in earnest or 
as a jest. 


WICKED OLD WOMAN IN WIMPOLE STREET, 83 

“ Oh, well, I’m very glad it’s all right I hut one never 
knows, with you men about town. You are all of you 
deceivers — nice deceivers for the most part, I grant you. 
I’ve always been fond of a nice man — it’s a weakness 
of mine, even in my old age — but when there is any 
talk of marriage in the air, then all at once one finds 
you out. There always turn out to be difficulties and 
impediments of divers kinds; there is a divorced or 
deserted wife in the background, or the Lord ktjows 
what!” 

“ I assure you. Lady Forrester,” said Cecil solemnly, 
turning quite red at these extraordinary suggestions, 
‘‘I do not, of course, know the sort of men you have 
been acquainted with, but speaking for myself, I can 
say that there are no difficulties or impediments, nor 
any of those other things you mention, and my dearest 
hope in life is to make your grand-daughter my wife.” 

“ Oh, well, I am very glad to hear it, I am sure,” 
answered the old lady, nodding at him in a friendly 
way and laying the queen of spades down upon one of 
the long rows in front of her. “ You don’t mind my 
going on with my game, do you ? It is a new kind of 
Patience I am learning. I can talk all the time I am 
playing. That is the beauty of Patience; it is no men- 
tal strain. Ah ! well, I am delighted to hear that you 
are really going to marry little Nell; she is quite my 
favourite. And really, it is time those girls got hus- 
bands. I wish you could have seen your way to Lottie, 
for I always think the eldest of a family of girls should 
go off first. But Lottie is losing her looks ; she is get- 
ting rather large and heavy now, and I daresay you 
preferred Nell.” 

“Very much indeed,” answered Cecil fervently. “In 
fact, Nell is the only one.” 

“ Oh, yes, I quite understand. You are a well brought 
up young man and the others wouldn’t appeal to you, 
though they seem to have plenty of admirers ; but as I 
was saying, husbands are another matter. However, I 
agree with you that Nell is the pick of the bunch. Ah I 
here Is Nell ! Nell, my dear, I have been making friends 
with your young man. I like him very much ; he is 
deliciously simple, and takes everything I say quite 


84 


A BAD LOT, 


seriously. I am sure he will make you an excellent 
husband — serious persons always do.” 

In all the course of his life Cecil Eoscoe had never 
heard himself called “ deliciously simple” before. He 
had believed himself to be clever, sensible, and clear- 
headed, but a delicious simplicity was the very last 
attribute he should have imagined himself to possess ; 
yet it was impossible to take offence at Lady Forrester’s 
little sallies. There was a certain bonhomie about her — 
she was so confiding in her dreadful outspokenness, so 
frankly and naively cynical, that Cecil began to under- 
stand why, although she was always described as being 
so very wicked, yet people always liked to go and see 
her. She shocked him considerably, but she attracted 
him at the same time. 

“ Your mother has called,” said Hell to him, after a 
quiet greeting had passed between them. “I was so 
very sorry to be out.” 

“ I am very sorry, too. Why does Lady Forrester 
laugh?” he added aside to her, observing that the old 
woman had gone off into one of her noiseless chuckles, 
her face a mass of wrinkles and her shoulders shaking. 

‘‘Hever mind,” said Hell hurriedly, in a low voice, 
“ she laughs at everything.” 

Then Cecil produced with some pride a telegram from 
his mother he had just received at his chambers. It 
was to tell him to invite Hell to dinner in Eutland 
Gate. 

And Hell was pleased to have been invited and promised 
to go. She had come up to London in a subdued frame 
of mind. She had taken herself very much to task for 
the impatience and disappointment which she had felt 
on Sunday. She had tried very hard to make excuses 
for Cecil. She knew that he had lived in another w^orld 
to herself, a world wLere order and prudence and fore- 
thought were cardinal virtues. It was a world she knew 
nothing about, but 4nto which she felt dimly that it 
would be a good thing for her to enter. To marry well 
and respectably was now in her power. She saw that 
it would benefit, not only herself, but her family also, 
that she should take this step. It would not do to dis- 
appoint them all; it would be better not to think too 


WICKED OLD WOMAN IN WIMPOLE STREET. 85 


much about ideals and theories. Cecil was good — far 
too good indeed for her — and as she had promised to 
marry him, she made up her mind that she would stick 
to her promise and make the best of those things in 
him which jarred vaguely and almost intangibly against 
her innermost self. 

So she was very sweet and pleasant to him in this 
little interview in Wimpole Street. They sat together 
in the back drawing-room ; there was no light save from 
the other room, and dark masses of heavy old-fashioned 
furniture surrounded them in their seclusion like ghosts 
of a past generation. They sat upon a sofa hand in 
hand, and talked together in whispers, whilst the old 
lady played her game of Patience at the card table in 
the front room. She looked like a picture under the 
circle of the lamplight, with her wrinkles and her 
painted face and the yellow curling wig — a picture that 
might have been called “ Greed” or “ The Euling Pas- 
sion,” or “At Monte Carlo,” or anything else with 
which an old woman playing cards can be associated. 
Every now and then she called out to them, and made 
little remarks that Nell laughed at, but which made 
Cecil wince as often as not. 

“ Don’t mind me, I am blind and deaf,” or, “ Go on 
spooning, dear turtle-doves, it reminds me of my youth,” 
or, “ You tell your aunt, Mr. Eoscoe, I shall come to the 
wedding. I doubt if she’ll consent to stand in the same 
church with me, but I mean to be there, you can tell 
her.” 

And then, when Cecil rose to go and wished her good- 
bye, the old lady said suddenly, turning to her grand- 
daughter, “ This one is quite sure he hasn’t got a wife 
alive anywhere, Nell,” and then she laughed wickedly, 
whilst it seemed to Cecil that Nell grew red. 

What had she meant by “ this one,” he said to himself 
as he walked away homewards across the park. Cecil 
had thought a good deal about what Major Pryor had 
said that evening at dinner at tFe Windham Club. In 
spite of himself and of his friend Temple’s parting words 
of encouragement, some of the major’s words had 
haunted him ; he could not altogether shake off a vague 
feeling of uneasiness and doubt. 

8 


86 


A BAD LOT. 


What had especially rankled in his mind was the 
allusion which Major Pryor had made to some discredit- 
able story about one of Gordon Forrester’s daughters : 
the story he had said that Lady Forrester had not had 
the time to relate to him. 

Which one of Gordon Forrester’s daughters was it 
over which the wicked old woman in Wimpole Street 
had winked and nodded and made merry? If it had 
been Lottie or Millie, Cecil did not very much care ; he 
disliked those two young ladies cordially, and although 
he did not believe anything worse could be said of them 
than that they were fast and noisy and somewhat vulgar, 
he had every intention of dropping them as much as 
possible as soon as he was married. Nell seemed to him 
to be so far above them all, and his only desire was to 
withdraw her altogether from the corrupting influences 
of her life and surroundings. 

“ It must have been Lottie or Millie,” he had said to 
himself over and over again, trying in vain to banish 
the haunting suspicion from his mind, for what “ scrape” 
was it possible to associate with Nell? The very word 
and its loathsome suggestions made him shudder. Nell, 
with her beauty and her grace, with the frank sweet 
laugh, and her little air of thoughtful refinement — how 
could she have been the one* to get into a “scrape,” or 
to have had an “ adventure” of such a nature as to set a 
painted old Jezebel giggling? 

Ah, perish the thought of ill-omen ! 

Oh, if only his mother would take her by the hand 
and be good to her and learn to love her, what a tower 
of strength she might be to him against all these dispar- 
aging aspersions and insinuations! 

After Cecil had gone away, Nell went and knelt down 
by Lady Forrester’s side, much as she had knelt there 
on that other memorable day long ago. 

“ Granny,” she said, with a certain diffidence in face 
and manner, “ I wish you hadn’t said that.” 

“Said what? Oh, you silly little Nell, don’t look so 
miserable — as if it mattered. It is an old joke between 
you and I — how could he understand ?” 

“ Granny, ought I to tell him, do you think, before I 
marry him ?” 


WICKED OLD WOMAN IN WIMPOLE STREET. 87 


“ What I tell him that Yane Darley wanted you to 
run away with him ? My dear, what on earth should 
you tell him for?” 

“ I thought, perhaps, I ought to. I would much rather 
not tell him, but ought a woman to have any secrets from 
her husband, do you think ?” 

“ My dear child, if wives hadn’t got secrets from their 
husbands, the world would have come to an end a long 
time ago, for the women would all be murdered.” 

“ Then you think there is no occasion ?” 

‘‘Certainly not. Besides, that young man wouldn’t 
understand — he is too innocent. The joke would seem 
very flat to him.” 

“ It wasn’t a joke, granny ; don’t call it one. It was 
terrible. I — I have never got over it, never been the 
same. It was so shameful, so degrading — and — and it 
half broke my heart,” she added with a little catch in 
her voice. 

Lady Forrester glanced at her keenly. She had 
always been fond of Nell; there was a tender little 
corner in her withered old heart for her beautiful grand- 
child. 

“ I hope you are not hankering after that old sinner, 
Yane Darley, still, after all these years ?” she said tenta- 
tively. 

“ Oh, no — no — ten thousand times no ! It is only that 
he spoilt so much in me — sometimes I cannot forgive 
him.” 

“ I see you still wear his present, but you are quite 
right to do that. Love wears out — diamonds don’t. 
Dottie thinks I gave it to you ; she said so last time she 
was here, and hinted that she would like one, too. I 
told her she hadn’t earned it as you had !” and the old 
lady laughed and pinched Nell’s cheeks. 

“Granny, you will never tell any one, will you?” 
pleaded Nell earnestly. 

“ Of course not. Don’t be a fool, child,” but she did 
not think it necessary to inform Nell how often, without 
mentioning her by name, she had made a good story to 
some old reprobate of her acquaintance out of the ad- 
venture of a sixteen-year-old grand-daughter, nor how 
nearly a certain Major Pryor had been one of those to 


88 


A BAD LOT. 


listen to the recital. “As to Yane Darley,” she went 
on, not desiring to pursue that side of the question any 
further, “he was a conquest any girl might have been 
proud of, let alone a baby of sixteen.” 

“ Oh, granny, how can you call it a conquest?” cried 
Nell indignantly and hotly. 

“Well, well, don’t get angry. Of course it was very 
wicked, and you were a little goose, but it did you no 
harm, and you need not trouble your head about him. 
You will never see him again; he hasn’t been in Eng- 
land for years, and nobody on earth knows anything 
about it but me, and 1 shall soon be in my grave, and 
then nobody will know.” 

Then, in the moment of silence that followed, all at 
once there flashed back a certain scene upon Nell For- 
rester’s memory. 

A crowded London terminus — the flaring gas over- 
head, the steam from the snorting engine, the crowd of 
cabs on the roadway, the porters hustling by with the 
luggage, and the well-known face of a woman who had 
looked at her full in the face blankly and sternly. 

“ Come along, John, there is no occasion to stop to speak 
to strangers.'' 

“ 1 wonder what has become of Mrs. Hartwood !” 
shot suddenly through Nell’s mind with a little shudder. 
She went up to bed that night feeling strangely depressed 
and miserable. For the first time she had broken the 
silence of years, and had spoken of that long-ago story 
of her early girlhood. The very fact of having done so 
seemed to bring it all back to her with a startling vivid- 
ness. Here, in the dull house in Wimpole Street, where 
time seemed to have stood still, where nothing was out- 
wardly changed or altered — here, in the self-same tiny 
upper bedroom, where once she had wept out her heart, 
and buried her scorching cheeks in the pillows of the 
narrow bed, Nell Forrester could no longer treat the 
past as though it had been but a dream, the half-forgotten 
illusion of some previous existence. 

For the fact remains that, although our past actions 
may perish, the consequences of them are too frequently 
immortal. The past, in short, never can be said to be 
dead and buried. One may live it down, blot it out, 


WICKED OLD WOMAN IN WIMPOLE STREET. 89 


cover it up under a mountain load of years and of new 
experiences ; one may flatter oneself that the old ghosts 
are laid for ever, and yet ten to one, some day when one 
least expects it, they will creep out of their graves again 
and confront us once more in all their pristine hideous- 
ness. 

Nell Forrester had that night an innate conviction 
that she had not heard the last of the sin of her youth 
— a presentiment that she had not done with Colonel 
Yane Darley. 

Yet, so buoyant is the human constitution, that with 
morning light most of these dire shadows had melted 
away, and when the day dawned upon which she was to 
dine at her future mother-in-law’s house, Nell had no 
deeper misgivings upon her mind than those concerning 
the shabbiness of her evening gown, no direr forebodings 
than the manner in which Mrs. Eoscoe would receive 
her. 

“ She will be very nice to you, I am sure,” Cecil had 
said to her that same afternoon reassuringly. “My 
mother is really very soft-hearted, and once she takes to 
you she will be all that is kind. My aunt, Mrs. Torrens, 
is, I admit, rather formidable, but, after all, she has 
nothing to say to it — only don’t let her snub you. I 
dislike my aunt Torrens, and I don’t think she is remark- 
ably fond of me. If she is disagreeable, don’t take any 
notice of her.” 

This was not particularly encouraging. Everything 
seemed to depend on whether or no Mrs. Eoscoe “ took 
to her,” and there, of course, Nell felt completely at sea. 
She was inclined to fancy that in any case she should 
not “ take to” Mrs. Eoscoe, Lady Forrester’s contemptu- 
ous mention of her not having led her to cherish any 
very attractive expectations concerning her. 

“ I wish there had not been any one else dining there, 
Cecil.” 

“ So do I,” answered Cecil, with a slight contraction 
of the brow, for he knew more about it than he had 
ventured to tell her, “ but perhaps my mother thought 
a little party should be given in your honour,” he said, 
with a secret hope that Nell might, by good luck, regard 
the coming banquet in this light. “ And — and,” he went 

8 * 


90 


A BAD LOT. 


on, after half a moment’s pause, with some hesitation, 
‘•3 0 U will remember, won't you, Nell dear, that — they 
are all very quiet decorous sort of people, my mother’s 
friends. They are very particular, you know — I always 
feel myself, at her dinners, as if I must mind my p’s and 
q’s,” he added with a little awkward laugh. 

“And you want me to mind mine, I suppose?” said 
Nell rather drily. “1 quite understand. I will try not 
to disgrace you before them by any unseemly outburst 
of ill-placed hilarity.” 

She said it so seriously that he did not quite like it. 
They had been out for a walk together, and he glanced 
down nervously at her face, but her hat was broad and 
her veil so thick that he could not tell in the least 
whether she was annoyed, or whether she was not even 
secretly laughing at him. 

And it was all these things put together that made 
the long journey in the four-wheeled cab between Wim- 
pole Street and Eutland Gate seem just twice its normal 
length to Nell Forrester that same evening. 


CHAPTEK X 

THE FIRST LINES OF THE ROMANCE. 

Julian Temple is standing on the bear skin hearth- 
rug in Mrs. Eoscoe’s drawing room in Eutland Gate. 
It was not the first time he had dined at her house, and 
on a previous occasion when he had done so, he had regis- 
tered a vow as he left her door that he would never be 
inveigled into dining with her again ; for if her cook 
was unimpeachable, her friends bored him, and to be 
bored was, as I think I have already mentioned, the bug- 
bear of Mr. Temple’s existence. 

Yet here he was again, very much against his inclina- 
tions, undergoing the usual penance of the mauvais quart 
d'heure before dinner, in a room full of people who 
were all of them utterly uncongenial to him. 

The fact was that he had yielded to Cecil’s earnest 


THE FIRST LINES OF THE ROMANCE. 


91 


and personal entreaties on the subject. Cecil had ap- 
peared one day at his rooms in Piccadilly bearing his 
mother’s invitation card in his hand ; it was the morning 
after she had invited Nell. 

“For Heaven’s sake come and help me out, Temple,” 
Cecil had entreated, when he saw that Julian began to 
shake his head doubtfully over the note — “ My mother 
has asked my girl to this party — it was very grudgingly 
done, and I was in a mortal fear that she would take no 
notice of her at all, save leaving cards at the door. She 
flatly refused to let me bring her to see her, she said it 
would agitate her too much, and that her doctor tells 
her her heart is weak, and that she must avoid ‘ scenes,’ 
and all sorts of excuses of that kind. But she happened 
to have got this dinner party on, and just at the last 
moment she said she would ask her to it, if I could find 
another man to make the number right, so do, like a 
good chap, come and help me out. I want the evening 
to go off well, and you to talk to her a bit, and make it 
pleasant to her.” 

And so, to oblige Cecil he had accepted the invitation. 
He was calling himself a fool for his pains just now, as 
he looked round upon the assembling guests. An octo- 
genarian earl, who was Mrs. Eoscoe’s chief and only 
aristocratic card, and his aged countess — he, weakly 
garrulous with the weight of years, and she, very deaf 
and dull, a bland and smiling city potentate, an ex-lord 
mayor who had been knighted during the period of his 
mayoralty in honour of the birth of some royal baby ; 
his wife broad and bland like her husband, and very 
much over-dressed without being well dressed, in salmon- 
coloured satin ; a wealthy stockbroker of swarthy com- 
plexion and Hebraic, features with diamond studs in his 
shirt front; his wife, a dark-browed lady, like unto him- 
self, with a perfect shop front of jewellery displayed 
upon and about her capacious bosom. There were also 
a couple of men of uncertain age, and of insignificant 
and unrefined exterior, and a thin young lady very 
smartly dressed, who sat by herself upon a distant sofa, 
and looked intensely miserable. 

Amongst all these people Julian Temple looked like 
some one out of another hemisphere. 


92 


A BAD LOT. 


Without being in the least handsome, he possessed 
nevertheless that air of distinction which ensures supe- 
riority to a man in almost any company in which he may 
find himself. It was impossible to pass him over in a 
crowd. He had the perfectly quiet and self-contained 
manners of a man who is born to the best society, and 
who at thirty-eight years of age has learnt to under- 
stand, without over estimating, his own position in the 
world. 

In appearance he was a somewhat largely built man ; 
tall and broad-shouldered, with a complexion tanned to a 
healthy red brown ; his hair was so liberally sprinkled 
with grey that it was impossible now to do more than 
guess at its original colour; his eyebrows were brown 
and well defined; his eyes deep set, dark blue, and 
kindly ; his nose rather large, his mouth, that was 
partially concealed by a tawny brown moustache, of a 
singular and almost womanly sweetness — his chin, on 
the other hand, was square and resolute, cleft with a 
deep dimple in the centre; he was always very carefully 
dressed, although there was nothing about his toilette 
that could suggest the exaggerations of fashion or 
foppery. 

If I have gone somewhat minutely into this descrip- 
tion of Julian Temple’s personal appearance, it is because 
no man on earth ever bore his character more plainly in- 
scribed upon his face than he did. There was in him a 
mixture of strength and of weakness, of manliness and 
womanly gentleness, of stern resolution almost amount- 
ing to obstinacy — that at times was liable to be utterly 
swept away by a softness of heart that would as often 
as not make shipwreck of his best considered determina- 
tions. Such a man may be uncertain in his moods and 
tempers — he may even be inconsistent and undependable 
— but with it all he is almost invariably lovable. 

Mr. Temple stood in the middle of Mrs. Eoscoe’s 
hearthrug and looked, as indeed he felt, like a fish out 
of water. 

The heroine of the evening had not yet arrived, and 
in spite of the unsympathetic nature of his surround- 
ings, he experienced a decided and growing curiosity to 
see CqciV 8 fiancee. 


THE FIRST LINES OF THE ROMANCE. 93 

It soon became apparent to him that she was the last, 
and that she was late. 

He overheard a whispered word or two between Mrs. 
Roscoe and Mrs. Torrens ; 

“I should not wait,” he heard the latter say. 

“ My dear, it is only five minutes after the hour ! I 
think we had better wait another moment or two. 
Cecil would be so much annoyed if we went down with- 
out her.” 

“ It is very bad taste on her part to be late,” rejoined 
the elder lady, ill-temperedly. 

“ Poor little soul !” thought Julian to himself pityingly 
as they moved away together. 

Cecil was apparently ill at ease — he fidgetted about 
the room from one person to another, making irrelevant 
remarks about the weather, and moving away again 
without waiting for a response, with his head and eyes 
constantly turned towards the door. 

A few minutes ago he had taken Julian up to the sad- 
faced young lady on the sofa, and had introduced her to 
him as Miss Vincent. Mr. Temple, who was at least 
grateful to the octogenarian Peer for saving him from 
the honour of taking down his hostess, merely bowed 
and retired again to his hearthrug ; he said to himself 
that it would be hard enough to find subjects of con- 
versation with that girl through dinner — there was 
surely no need to begin the exhaustive process before- 
hand. 

An elderly gentleman near him, who was discussing 
the rise and fall of the commercial markets with the 
Israeli tish stockbroker, answered also to the name of 
Vincent — he took him to be the father of his fate. 

How deadly uninteresting all these people were ! 

Mr. Temple groaned internally, and wished again for 
the twentieth time that he had never been such a fool as 
to come. 

At last the door opened again, and the butler an- 
nounced — “ Miss Eleanor Forrester.” 

From that moment Julian Temple ceased to regret 
that he was dining in Rutland Gate. 

He thought her the loveliest creature he had ever set 
eyes on. She wore a dress of pale blue gauze — it was 


94 


A BAD LOT. 


very shabby, and a little faded in colour, and was made 
according to the cut and fashion of two seasons ago. 
It was a garment that had, in fact, belonged to Dottie, 
and had been hurriedly cut down and taken in, and 
otherwise furbished up by the united efforts of homo 
labours — maids and mistresses — in order to render Nell 
presentable for her visit to London. But NelTs beauty 
was of that rare and high order that can scarcely be 
marred by any dress, however ill-made and old fashioned. 
The faded blue did but set off the brilliance of her hair 
and eyes and the exquisite tints of her complexion, and 
the tumbled and creased folds fell deftly into the lines 
of her slender figure, and gathered themselves with a 
natural grace about her rounded bosom and dainty waist. 
There was a frightened look in her beautiful grey eyes 
as she came alone into the large room full of strangers, 
yet she carried her small head high, and there was a 
thorough-bred look about her that set her far away above 
every other woman in the room. 

Julian became deeply and intensely interested in her 
entrance ; he saw that her red lips were parted, and that 
her white bosom fluttered, and he guessed that her heart 
must be beating with nervousness at the formidable 
nature of this public reception, and he hated the mother 
and the aunt of his friend, and his friend, too, into the 
bargain, for allowing her to be subjected to such a cruel 
ordeal. 

Cecil had hastened to her side, and it seemed to Julian 
that his whispered greeting to her must contain a scold- 
ing, for he caught the words of her faint excuse — “ I 
am really very sorry, but the cab was so slow. 1 thought 
the horse would have tumbled on his nose.” 

Then Mrs. Eoscoe came forward and shook hands 
with her exactly as she had done with all her other 
guests, with just a stereotyped word or two of pleasure 
at seeing her, calling out almost in the same breath to 
the butler over her head — “ Dinner at once, please.” 

So that Nell felt immediately that she was in disgrace, 
and that her lateness was accounted unto her as a sin. 
Mrs. Torrens also exchanged a few cold w’ords with her — 
mainly about the weather and the unsatisfactory nature 
of cabs — after which she was deposited in a chair, Cecil 


THE FIRST LINES OF THE ROMANCE. 95 

hanging rather feebly about her for the few remaining 
minutes upstairs. 

As to Nell, she was too bewildered, and if the truth 
be told too mortified, to see anybody or anything for 
some few moments. It was only after she found herself 
seated at the long dinner table that she gathered heart 
and courage to look about her. All that she saw dis- 
mayed and oppressed her. The very table, laden with 
flowers and with silver, with rose-coloured paper shades 
to soften the light, and rich smells of well-cooked dishes 
pervading the atmosphere — although it was only the 
ordinary dinner party aspect of the commonplace Lon- 
don banquet — was an astonishment and a revelation to 
her. If this was the way that Cecil had been accus- 
tomed to live — if this glitter of silver and glass, these 
dainty dishes, this never ending succession of wines — 
this oppressive sense of state and splendour were the 
natural attributes of his home, then how squalid and 
beggarly, how ill-arranged and disorderly must not 
Marshlands and its happy-go-lucky life appear in his 
eyes! And then the people! There were sixteen of 
them in all — enough surely to be merry and happy to- 
gether — yet it seemed to Nell that she had never seen 
so many dull and uninterested faces gathered together. 
They talked in bated tones ; there was a sort of murmur 
that went round, interspersed with intervals of silence ; 
their knives and forks in fact, often drowned the sound 
of their voices. 

There was never a laugh that seemed to be spon- 
taneous, nor a jest exchanged, nor an eye that shone 
and sparkled with responsive pleasure. The smiles, like 
the voices, were cold and forced and measured. Cecil 
sat intrenched about with dowagers at the end of the 
table — the mayor’s lady on his left talked about the new 
county councillors, whilst he did his best to convey her 
remarks second-hand down the ear trumpet of the aged 
countess on his right. People to the right and lelt of 
Nell talked about the most uninteresting things ; they 
mainly discussed mutual acquaintances, and their say- 
ings and doings, or related dreary anecdotes concerning 
the seaside or country outings that every one had just 
come back from. They compared the relative prices of 


96 


A BAD LOT. 


hotels, and the beneficial eifects that the air and the 
change had had upon their respective healths. 

An elderly gentleman with a sallow complexion and 
lanky black hair had escorted Nell into dinner, and 
presently as in duty bound he attempted to enter into 
conversation with her. 

“ Do you consider London full for the time of the 
year?” he inquired politely. 

“I really don’t know,” answered Nell, “I was never 
in London at this time of the year before.” 

“ Indeed !” he ejaculated, looking round at her for a 
moment as if she had said something very remarkable. 
After which he finished his soup in silence. 

“ Did you ever eat turtle soup at a Mansion House 
dinner ?” was his next venture — suggested no doubt by 
the fluid he had just consumed. 

“ I have never eaten turtle soup anywhere in my life,” 
replied Nell with a laugh. 

And after that her neighbour gave her up. He 
probably considered her past praying for. 

Nell sat in absolute silence for a seemingly endless 
period. The fish — two kinds — went round in succession ; 
then came sweetbreads. She had no heart to eat, she 
felt too utterly crushed and miserable, like a stranded 
creature in a strange land, her only friend divided from 
her by a barricade of flowers and a wilderness of glass 
and silver, and so absorbed in his duties as a host to the 
old ladies on either side of him, that he could not even 
find time to give her a glance. 

He might have looked at her now and then, thought 
Nell, who about this period began to experience a 
childish desire to cry. A little smile across the crowd 
of strange faces would have been such a help to her! 
But Cecil — although she did not know it — would have 
thought such a proceeding the height of indecorum. 
He was in love with her, but not so much in love 
as to render him oblivious of the conventionalities of 
society. 

Just at this moment when things were at their worst 
with her, someone on the other side turned round 
squarely in his chair and said to her with a very bright 
and winning smile: 


THE FIRST LINES OF THE ROMANCE. 97 

“Well, Miss Forrester, and what are you thinking 
about, I wonder?” 

She felt some surprise at hearing herself addressed 
by name, but the kind eyes and the pleasant face won 
her confidence at once. 

I was thinking,” she said in a lowered voice, with a 
little answering gleam of fun in her upturned eyes, “ the 
thoughts of an outlaw — I fear !” 

“ And what are they ? You can tell me safely, because 
I am an outlaw too — at heart.” 

“ I was thinking how deadly dull, respectable society 
seems to be,” she replied in a lowered voice. 

Julian Temple laughed. “Have you come to that 
conclusion already ?” 

“ Is it always like this ?” inquired Nell almost with awe. 

“ The average London dinner parly is usually framed 
much on the same lines, sometimes it is of a higher 
standard of intelligence, sometimes lower; this repre- 
sents a very fair average I should say.” 

“Then what on earth makes people dine out? If it 
is only for the food, they might have the same dishes at 
home, and save themselves the weariness of eating them 
in public.” 

“ The food I fancy is only the secondary considera- 
tion — sometimes it is very secondary — I must admit,” 
added Temple, with all a man’s generous appreciation 
of a good dinner, “that Mrs. Eoscoe’s cook is an admir- 
able person ; but alas ! even that solace is not always at 
hand to counterbalance the tedium of these functions.” 

“ Then why do people give dinner parties at all ?” 

“The whole system of dinner giving in London is 
based upon a principle of give and take. There is a 
tacit understanding that the entertained shall pay back 
the entertainer in kind. ‘ I ask you to dinner and you 
must ask me back again,’ is the scarcely veiled compact 
in the dinner-giving world. Or else, if you can’t repay 
my dinner by giving me one in return, you must make 
it worth my while to invite you. You must contribute 
good looks, smart clothes, clever conversation or vocal 
accomplishments ; you must in short make yourself of 
some use or value to me in order to recoup me for the 
food you consume !” 

K g 


9 


98 


A BAD LOT. 


IS'ell looked up at him quietly and meditatively for 
half a moment, and then she said Avith a little gleam of 
malice in the corner of her eye : “ I wonder why you 
came here to-night !” 

His eyes met hers with a curious expression in them. 
“If I gave you twenty guesses you would never find 
out,” he said, smiling. “So 1 will tell you at once. I 
came here for you.” 

“For me!” she repeated in amazement, a wave of 
colour flooding her sensitive face. 

“ Yes ; solely and simply for you ! To talk to you, to 
amuse you, to make friends with you ! Don’t look so 
astonished ! I am an old friend of Cecil’s, and he wanted 
me to know you. I have sympathized with him about 
his engagement, and now more than ever, since I have 
seen you. You poor little thing,” he added on a sudden 
impulse, lowering his voice and bending down a little 
towards the shell-like ear and the pure sweet profile that 
was now turned towards him. “ I am so sorry, it was 
80 hard on you 1” 

She knew at once instinctively what he meant. That 
he was thinking of her entrance — of her first meeting 
with Cecil’s mother — of Cecil himself, too far off to 
render her any help or countenance. Her grateful eyes 
flashed up her thanks into his. What bewildering eyes 
they were ! Something, he knew not what, smote sud- 
denly through his veins. A warm gladness — a sense of 
joy indescribable. It was as though someone had opened 
to him a door into some unknown and lovely land where, 
if he might not enter, he might at least stand at the 
threshold and gaze his fill. 

“ How, we must be real friends, you and I,” he said, 
after a moment of strange and sympathetic silence. 
“ You must tell me about your home in Fenshire. I 
know some people down there.” He did not mention 
their name, deeming that they would not be acquaint- 
ances, and not wishing to embarrass her. “ Sometimes 
I go there for shooting — indeed I believe I am going 
there next week. Do you know it is the fashion to call 
Fenshire flat and ugly, but I always think there is a 
curious fascination about it.” 

“Oh yes, is there notl” she assented eagerly. “It 


THE FIRST LINES OF THE ROMANCE. 


99 


has a charm of its own, different to every other country. 
It is so wide, so breezy, and so changeful in colouring,” 
and then she found herself telling him all about the sun- 
set views from her bedroom window, the red glow across 
the level plains, and the pearly greys of dusk ; about 
the flights of birds wending southwards in the autumn, 
the wild ducks that swirled across the marshes towards 
the evening sky. Then, again, she described to him how 
in the winter, wild storms swept over the lowering 
heavens, and how the winds soughed and sobbed all 
night long amongst the chimney-stacks of her home. 
She drew these pictures vividly and graphically with an 
artist’s touch in her language, and with all the fervour of 
a keen and impassioned lover of nature in all her moods. 

He found himself listening with more and more in- 
terest, and more and more eagerness. He wondered 
vaguely if she talked liked that to Cecil, or if she did, 
whether he understood her. The imaginative faculty 
in her, and the picturesque language in which she clothed 
some of her fanciful ideas, appealed to him strongly. 
He found himself talking to her back again as he had 
never talked before to any one, telling her of a thought 
that had lain for long, deep in the depths of his mind, 
It was the sketch ot a romance, to be called “The 
Romance of Risen Souls,” who were to sweep through 
the world on the wings of the storm winds, revisiting 
the scenes of their earthly abodes ; of how they would 
find others filling the places that had once been theirs, 
and of how the remorseless winds would catch them up 
again and hurry them onwards. 

It was wonderful how this girl entered into his thought 
and grasped the details of this somewhat eccentric fan- 
tasy. Once or twice, indeed, she suggested something 
entirely new to him, some improvement on his own 
idea. The vividness of her conceptions and the quick- 
ness of her comprehension surprised and delighted him. 

“If that book is ever written, we must certainly 
collaborate,” he said at last with a smile, recalling him- 
self with an effort to a lighter frame of mind. “After 
all that you have said, I could never write it alone !” 

“ I hope — I hope — I have not said very foolish things,” 
said Hell timidly, becoming once more the little shy 


100 


A BAD LOT. 


country girl he had thought her at first. “ One has so 
many odd fancies of which one never speaks, and it is 
good of you to have let me talk to you about mine.” 

“ I have never enjoyed anything more in my life than 
listening to them,” he said earnestly. “ Some of your 
thoughts are beautiful. I have never met a keener ap- 
preciation of the effects of sky and weather in any artist 
I have known.” 

Nell blushed with pleasure. 

“Ah, that is all because I have been born and bred in 
the dear fen country. Come and see it soon.” 

“ I will, very soon,” he answered, his eyes meeting hers 
more eagerly than perhaps he had any idea of. 

After the ladies had gone upstairs, Julian strolled 
round to where Cecil was sitting. 

“ W ell,” the young barrister looked up eagerly, “ how 
did she get on ?” he asked a little anxiously. “ She is 
lovely, isn’t she ? Did she find anything to talk about ?” 

“ She talked better than any one I have met for a long 
time, my dear fellow. Your fiancee is not only beautiful 
in face, Cecil — she has a very beautiful and poetical 
mind.” 

“ Has she ?” said Cecil, looking rather astonished and 
puzzled. Nell was lovely and sweet and fascinating, 
certainly, but that she possessed a mind at all was a 
considerable surprise to him. 

“Oh! Well, old man, I am glad you got on with 
her,” he said lightly after half a moment’s pause. 

“He does not appreciate her in the very least,” 
thought Julian. 


CHAPTEE XI. 

MISS Vincent’s painted cushion. 

Upstairs, they talked about their servants. 

Nell sat by herself upon a sofa, and for some time 
nobody spoke to her, Mrs. Eoscoe had flung herself 
heart and soul into a sympathetic discussion with the 
aged peeress over the shortcomings of her housekeej)er. 


MISS VINCENT’S PAINTED CUSHION. 


101 


Mrs. Torrens bemoaned herself to the ex-lady mayoress 
over the general flightiness and love of finery displayed 
by maidservants of the present day, and a little way otf 
two younger married ladies poured out mutual confi- 
dences, in bated voices, concerning their experiences in 
the feeding of young infants, diversified by anecdotes 
of the goings on of their respective nursery-maids. 

Nell sipped her cotfee, and wished herself back in 
Wimpole Street. Old Lady Forrester, with her caustic 
remarks, her little cynical speeches, half humorous, half 
bitter, was infinitely more amusing, she thought, than 
all these dull, prosy women, who had not, it seemed to 
her, two ideas in their heads. She tried to shut her 
ears to the senseless and brainless chatter, and to recall 
every word of her late conversation with her neighbour 
at dinner. There was a little flutter of excitement in 
her mind about him. She had never met any one quite 
like him before. He attracted and interested her, and 
she hoped that he would speak to her again when the 
gentlemen came upstairs. At this moment the dull- 
faced young lady came over from the other side of the 
room and sat down beside her. 

“ I think I must introduce myself to you. Miss For- 
rester, although, of course, you must know all about me 
already from Cecil. I am Ida Vincent.” 

Nell smiled and bowed, but did not quite know what 
remark was expected of her. 

“ Of course Cecil has talked to you of me,” continued 
Miss Vincent, “ for I am the oldest friend he has in the 
world.” 

“ Indeed ? I can’t exactly remember, but you see I 
have not known Cecil very long.” 

“ No ; so I understand. You can certainly not know 
him as I do, Miss Forrester. He and I have been dear 
friends since our childhood.” 

There was a certain aggressiveness about the way 
these words were spoken, that made Nell feel vaguely 
uncomfortable. She did not know why Miss Vincent 
should be at such pains to point out her own superior 
knowledge of Cecil to her. 

‘‘ You cannot know as I do,” went on Miss Vincent, 
warming to her subject, “ how superior he is to most 

9 * 


102 


A BAD LOT. 


men — how clever and wise, and how good and honour- 
able is his nature. You are a very fortunate girl. Miss 
Forrester.” 

“ I am glad you think so,” answered Nell without any 
enthusiasm. She had no intention of discussing Cecil’s 
character with this young lady, whose remarks struck 
her as being in singularly bad taste. In order to change 
the subject she inquired : “ Can you tell me the name of 
the gentleman who sat between us at dinner ? ” 

“ The gentleman who took me down, and who talked 
to you all the time, you mean ?” said Ida with a little 
spiteful laugh. “ Not that you were not perfectly wel- 
come to him. I think he is a dreadful person, although 
he is a friend of Cecil’s. His name is Mr. Julian 
Temple.” 

“ Why is he a dreadful person ?” asked Nell, with 
amusement. 

“ I do not like that type of man. I have never met 
him before, and I never wish to meet him again, for I 
have heard that he is one of those unscrupulous society 
men-about-town whose chief amusement is to draw 
people out — inexperienced girls especially, whom he con- 
siders fair prey — and then he makes fun of them after- 
wards, and repeats everything they say to the next per- 
son he talks too. I consider that sort of thing most 
reprehensible, don’t you ?” 

“ Certainly, if it is true. I may not have your ex- 
perience, Miss Vincent, but I can hardly believe that 
Mr. Temple is the kind of person you describe.” 

And after that Nell became rather thoughtful, and 
only answered in monosyllables. 

Miss Vincent said a great many other things to her, 
chiefly in praise of Cecil, and of his mother and his 
aunt, whom she said were the kindest and dearest women 
in the world. 

“ I live three doors olf, you see,” she said, “ so I have 
every opportunity of knowing how good they are. 
Nothing can exceed their kindness to myself, for in- 
stance. My father is a great deal away, and my mother 
is an invalid, and is obliged to go to bed early every 
evening, and dear Mrs. Eoscoe likes me to bring my 
work and sit with them in the evenings — I am almost 


MISS VINCENT’S PAINTED CUSHION 103 

like one of the family, I may say — and a dearer, kinder 
woman than Mrs. Eoscoe does not exist on earth.” 

Nell suddenly turned round and considered her com- 
panion attentively. Ida’s face, now she looked at it 
again, bore an expression that was not altogether at- 
tractive. She began to perceive instinctively that this 
young lady had no friendly feeling towards her, and that 
all these things were being said simply in order to make 
her feel uncomfortable. There was a spice of malice in 
these reiterated assertions of her own well-established 
footing in the family, as spoken to the girl to whom 
nobody paid any particular attention, although she was 
to be the wife of the son of the house. 

“ Do you think Mrs. Eoscoe is particularly kind to me, 
Miss Vincent ?” she inquired suddenly. “ 1 am to marry 
her son, as j^ou know, and she has never seen me before. 
She asks me to this formal dinner party, and as you see 
she has not yet spoken a dozen words to me. Now am 
I to believe her to be the kind hearted woman you de- 
scribe in the face of this marked unkindness to myself?” 

“ Oh, of course, Miss Forrester, I cannot answer for 
what Mrs. Eoscoe may do always. I only speak of 
people as I find them. To me, Mrs. Eoscoe has always 
been goodness itself, but then I know she is very fond 
of me. She loves me — as a daughter almost !” added 
Ida, with an irrepressible desire to vaunt her superior 
position in Mrs. Eoscoe’s estimation to this girl who had 
come between Cecil and herself. “ But for her he would 
have married me 1” she thought, with a dull, miserable 
anger at her heart, and she hated Nell for her beauty 
and for her success. 

She had said at first that she would not dine here 
to-night, and then a craving curiosity to see the girl 
who had taken Cecil from her, overcame her reluctance 
to accept the invitation. If she could have found her 
to be what she had heard the elder women say of her — 
vulgar, unladylike, loud in manner, and otfensive in con- 
versation, Ida would have extracted some amount of 
consolation out of it, but Nell’s lovely face and quiet 
self-possessed manners, her success at dinner with a man 
she had always heard spoken of as something of a lion 
in society owing to his originality and his exclusiveness, 


104 


A BAB LOT. 


and who had scarcely vouchsafed to speak a dozen 
words about the weather to herself, all increased her 
jealousy and her envy. 

Ida had heard a great deal in these last days about 
Cecil’s engagement, and about the extreme undesirable- 
ness of the Forrester connection. Mrs. Torrens was a 
person who always spoke her mind, and she had not 
minced her words about her reminiscences of the For- 
resters as she remembered them in her younger days — 
even when Ida had been present. Sometimes, indeed, 
she had gone so far, that Mrs. Eoscoe, with greater dis- 
cretion, had placed a warning finger upon her lip, and 
murmured “ hush,” with a side glance at Ida’s thin figure 
stooping under the lamp light over her fancy work. 

“ Oh, Ida is a child, she won’t understand,” Mrs. Tor- 
rens had answered carelessly. 

But Ida was no child, and she understood perfectly. 
She understood that this marriage was considered by 
his mother and aunt to be a disastrous thing for Cecil — 
that the girl had no money, and that her people were 
not visited by anybody in Fenshire, which surely pointed 
to something very disreputable in their antecedents! 
Ida knew, moreover, that she herself would have been 
highly acceptable to them as a wife for Cecil. She had 
had three proposals of marriage in her life, not one of the 
aspirants to her hand and fortune being under fifty years 
of age, but as her affections were centred upon Cecil 
Eoscoe, she had dismissed her elderly suitors with im- 
mediate and decisive promptitude. She was aware that 
about a year ago her father and Mrs. Eoscoe had had a 
little private interview together, of which she herself 
was the subject. 

“ Of course, my girl might have looked higher than a 
barrister in poor practice,” Mr. Vincent had stated on 
that occasion, very frankly and openly; “but still 1 
gather that she is fond of your son, and we are old 
friends, Mrs. Eoscoe, and I should be quite satisfied to 
see her happily married to him. It will save me a 
world of trouble and my poor wife, too ; for we neither 
of us can go trotting Ida out to parties in order to find 
her a husband,” and then Mr. Vincent had proceeded to 
state the sum that ho would be prepared to “ lay down” 


MISS VINCENTES PAINTED CUSHION. 


105 


at his daughter’s marriage, and the further sum she 
would inherit at his death. And these details had caused 
the mouth of Cecil’s mother to water with desire and 
longing, for the sums mentioned appeared to her to be 
fabulous, 

“ Of course, you must understand that my son would 
never consent to give up his profession to live upon his 
wife’s money,” said Mrs. Roscoe proudly, with a due 
regard to her own and Cecil’s dignity. 

“Quite right,” answered Mr. Vincent cordially. “I 
should be very sorry if he did. 1 am a business man 
myself, and approve of work for a young man.” 

“ And dear Mr. Vincent, if on that account alone — 
that he may get on at the Bar, and establish himself 
thoroughly before entering upon a new life — I do not 
wish my boy to marry for the next two or three years.” 

“ Oh, well, I am in no hurry to get rid of my girl. 
We would rather keep her at home, in fact, as long as 
we can, though we shall be glad to feel that her future 
is settled. A year or two of waiting won’t hurt either 
of them, and we are too near neighbours to run away 
from each other.” 

And so they thought they had settled everything very 
comfortably. This conversation had taken place more 
than a year ago, and from the date of it there had existed 
a tacit understanding between Mr. and Mrs. Vincent on 
the one side, and Mrs. Roscoe and Mrs. Torrens on the 
other, but it was agreed that the young people should be 
left in ignorance of this compact of their elders. Ida, 
however, had known all about it from the first, for she 
had wormed every detail of the momentous interview 
out of her mother. 

From that time the friendship between the two families 
was still further cemented. Ida was pressed to come to 
the house whenever she liked, and she got into the habit 
of running in and out of it at all hours of the day. 
She was always welcomed warmly; the two ladies 
without being actually mercenary would have been less 
than human had they not looked at her through the 
glorified halo of her father’s money bags, and to do them 
justice they were in addition sincerely fond of her. Ida 
was docile and deferential ; her manners were quiet and 


106 


A BAD LOT. 


her shyness and lack of conversation was no drawback 
in their eyes. 

They said to each other that she was ladylike and 
modest ; and in some people’s opinion it is scarcely neces- 
sary, or even desirable, for a woman to be anything more. 
Had she been a little cleverer, Ida might have found out 
for herself that Cecil treated her as a sister or a cousin, 
but was never likely to regard her as anything else. 
But perhaps she could not. and very certainly she did not, 
wish to see this — she preferred to receive all the pettings 
and the flattering encouragements from his mother and 
aunt, and to cheat herself into the fancy that he himself 
was ready to fall in with the views of his elders. 

The blow of his engagement fell very heavily upon 
her. After all these hopes and plans, these tacit under- 
standings and secret arrangements for his welfare, it was 
hard indeed upon them all that everything should be so 
unexpectedly and fatally upset by Cecil himself ; and, 
of course, as Ida really cared for him, it fell harder on 
her than on anyone else. Her nature, which was a 
somewhat narrow and cold one, might, under the sun- 
shine of love and happiness, not improbably have ex- 
panded into something better and nobler. She had 
seemed a sweet and good girl to Cecil’s mother during 
the time that all had promised brightly for her future. 
Perhaps, had everything gone on well and smoothlj^ 
she might have remained sweet and good to the end of 
the chapter. But Ida was one of those people — and 
they are without number in the world — upon whom ad- 
versity has an evil and a deteriorating effect. All the 
surface goodness and sweetness seemed to be burnt and 
dried up in her by this cruel stroke of fortune. There 
remained nothing but the soured and somewhat spiteful 
substratum which had perhaps always lain dormant at 
the base of her disposition. Hatred and envy of her 
more fortunate rival, and a wild desire to do something 
— she knew not what — to upset her happiness and to 
snatch Cecil back to herself, filled her whole heart. 
To-night, for the first time, all these thoughts began to 
take a definite shape within her. A few days ago she 
had overheard Mrs. Eoscoe say to her sister-in-law : 

“ All is not lost yet. Cecil has promised me that the 


MISS VINCENTES PAINTED CUSHION. 107 

marriage shall not take place before Easter. Between 
this and then who knows what may not happen ! He 
may come to see with his own eyes that such a marriage 
can never bring him happiness. Bad parents make bad 
children, and no daughter of that house can inherit any- 
thing but evil tendencies.” 

Ida had treasured up that speech in her heart. She was 
thinking of it now as she sat by Hell’s side looking with 
scarcely veiled repulsion at the lovely face of Cecil’s be- 
trothed. 

“ What can she do for him, a penniless girl with not 
even respectable connections ?” she thought — “ whereas 
papa’s money would help him on in the world — ^push him 
in his profession, and perhaps enable him to go into Par- 
liament by-and-bye.” 

Hell, who did not understand her, yet who began to 
dislike her a little, was playing with the tassels of a sofa 
cushion against which she happened to be leaning. It 
was a white satin cushion with an Italian landscape 
painted upon it surrounded by a wreath of roses. It 
was certainly not a work of high art, yet there was a 
certain effective prettiness about it. Hell still held her 
coffee cup in her hand, and Miss Vincent offered politely 
to put it down for her. A little coffee was left in the 
cup, and somehow, in transferring it from one to the 
other, the cup slipped in the saucer, and some of it was 
spilt upon the satin cushion. 

A mere trifle is frequently enough to influence a whole 
after-life, and although one never ceases to wonder at 
the infinitesimal causes which so often move the ma- 
chinery of human events, yet the only wonder should 
be that the insignificant incidents of existence do not 
oftener bring about greater results. 

A few drops of coffee accidentally spilt upon a sofa 
cushion — nothing more important than that! And yet 
in after days the little incident was destined to return 
to Hell’s memory with an almost startling significance. 

With an exclamation of regret, she tried to wipe off 
the stain with her pocket handkerchief 

“ I am so dreadfully sorry ; I am afraid it must have 
been my fault. It will spoil the cushion, coffee stains 
are so hard to get out — and it is exactly in the middle 
of the landscape, on the blue of the sky I” 


108 


A BAD LOT. 


“Oh, never mind,” said Ida, “it doesn’t signify; and 
perhaps I can do something to put it right. I painted 
it originally, so I ought to be able to do something.” 

“You painted it? How very clever of you!” And 
Nell, who was secretly, perhaps, a little anxious to pro- 
pitiate this disagreeable young woman who was so much 
at home in Cecil’s family, became outspoken in her ad- 
miration of the cushion. 

“ But it is beautifully done ! Y"ou must have a great 
talent for painting. Miss Vincent. This is almost like a 
miniature, and I am sure it must be extremely difficult 
to produce such a delicate effect upon the texture of 
satin.” 

“ Oh, no, it is not difficult when you have been taught 
how to do it,” answered Ida, somewhat mollified by the 
admiration for an accomplishment on which she prided 
herself. “ I took lessons from a lady at first, who 
showed me how to set about it. She sometimes gives 
me a lesson now ; would you like to have her address ? 
It would be a great charity if you could recommend 
her. She is the widow of a clergyman ; and she sup- 
ports herself entirely by giving lessons in painting on 
ivory and on satin. She has regular employment in fan 
painting for two or three shops, but she is very glad of 
pupils as well.” 

All at once, whilst Miss Vincent was speaking, there 
flashed back into Nell’s mind a vision of her girlish 
days. She seemed to see herself seated — one of a row 
of six unformed girls, all between the age of fourteen 
and fifteen — down one side of a bare dining-room table, 
whilst opposite them sat the vicar of the parish impart- 
ing religious instruction to the girl candidates of his 
confirmation class. It was a sad, dull room, with a dingy 
sideboard at one end of it and a fireless grate at the 
other, although the room faced north and the afternoons 
were cold and chilly, and in front of the empty hearth 
stood a square screen in an old-fashioned mahogany 
frame, on which there was a painting — a shepherdess in 
a blue gown, with a crook in one hand and a bunch of 
red flowers in the other ; behind her a green hill far 
away, on which sundry drab-coloured spots were dotted 
about. They might have been toadstools, but by the 


MISS VINCENTES PAINTED CUSHION. 


109 


sense and context of the picture they were probably a 
flock of sheep browsing, and the whole scene was set 
upon a background of discoloured yellowish white satin. 
Then there would come a sharp voice recalling the wan- 
dering attention of the weary fourteen-old catechumen : 

‘‘ Miss Eleanor Forrester, you are not attending to me 
in the least. I see that you are admiring my wife’s 
beautiful handiwork. When the class is over you are 
quite at liberty to examine it, but just now kindly listen 
to me and answer the question 1 have put to you twice 
over. What were the names of the six cities of refuge 
appointed by Joshua for the children of Israel on the 
east side of the Jordan ?” 

Hell Forrester was not able to answer that all-import- 
ant question ; it is doubtful if, to this very day, she has 
ever rightly known the names of those cities of refuge ; 
but the shepherdess upon the faded satin screen had 
always remained indelibly associated in her memory 
with that particular question, and with the somewhat 
dull and dry instruction imparted generall}^ to confirma- 
tion classes held by the well-meaning but exceedingly 
prosy Mr. Hartwood, vicar of the parish of Marshlands. 
She thought about that screen and the painted shep- 
herdess now. A little sickening doubt fluttered uncer- 
tainly across her mind — and yet, how ridiculous ! There 
must be hundreds of poor ladies in England who teach 
painting on satin, and amongst them many, no doubt, 
who are clergymen’s wives and widows in straitened cir- 
cumstances ; nevertheless a vague repugnance, something 
indefinite and intangible, that she could not account for, 
made her shrink from inquiring the name of Miss Yin- 
cent’s instructress. 

“ Oh, I am afraid it would be no use giving me her 
address. Miss Yincent, thank you all the same,” she said, 
a little hurriedly. “ I am not at all clever, I am afraid. 
We none of us have any accomplishments, beyond the 
making of our own dresses. I am sure I could not be 
of any use to the lady,” and then, to her unspeakable 
relief, the gentlemen entered the room, and Cecil came 
and sat down by her side. 

“ I wonder why she refused to be told her address !” 
said Ida Yincent to herself that night, when she was 

10 


no 


A BAD LOT. 


thinking over the events of the evening in her own bed- 
room, “ she looked so oddly at me, and she turned quite 
pale first, and then quite red — and I think — I almost 
think — that she looked frightened I — I wonder why ?” 


CHAPTEE XII. 

ACROSS HYDE PARK. 

Nell’s visit to London, in so far as the primary object 
of it was concerned, was undoubtedly a failure. 

To make friends with Cecil’s people, and to ingratiate 
herself into the heart of his mother, had been the prin- 
cipal reasons for her coming to town ; and when the 
last day of her visit came, he was forced to admit to 
himself that the effort had failed most wofully and 
lamentably. Mrs. Eoscoe, as a matter of fact, had no 
intention of making friends with Nell Forrester ; every 
step that she might have taken towards her, would have 
been, in her estimation, only a step in the wrong direc- 
tion. Her chief desire was that the match might be 
broken off, and that Cecil might return, as she imagined, 
to his allegiance to Ida Vincent. Why, then, should 
she go out of her way to strengthen and cement this 
undesirable engagement — and to further the cause of an 
unwished-for daughter-in-law ? “ If you ever marry her, 

it will be time enough then to see about loving her,” 
she had said to her son, when he appealed to her earn- 
estly — almost passionately — to be good to Nell. 

“ Time enough and to spare !” echoed Mrs. Torrens 
significantly and acidly. 

Cecil was pacing impatiently up and down his mother’s 
drawing-room, three days after the dinner party. 

“I intend to marry her,” he answered his mother, 
angrily and doggedly. 

“ Well, my dear boy, that remains to be seen. You, 
yourself, might change your mind. Of course, if you 
do marry her, then I shall endeavour to do my duty to 
her, for your sake.” 


ACROSS HYDE PARK. ‘ill 

Then Cecil went and knelt down by his mother’s chair, 
and put his arms coaxingly about her. 

“ My dear mother, do try to like her a little for her- 
self now. You must admire her; you must see how 
lovely and sweet she is.” 

“ Beauty is but skin deep,” croaked Mrs. Torrens from 
her corner, clicking her long knitting pins with a vicious 
ardour as she spoke. 

Cecil went on without seeming to hear his aunt ; he 
could not very well get up and take her by the shoul- 
ders and put her out of the room. Yet short of these 
extreme measures, it would have been impossible to ex- 
clude her from the family councils. She was, perhaps, 
afraid that her sister-in-law might be overcome by ma- 
ternal weakness if she herself was not at hand to give 
her support, for she never left her alone with her son in 
these days. 

“Dearest mother, why are you so hard upon poor 
l^ell ?” continued the young man pleadingly. “ I am 
willing to admit that there is much to be said against 
her family ; I deplore all that side of the question quite 
as much as you do.” 

“ Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers,” ejaculated 
Mrs. Torrens behind him. 

“But in Nell nobody can find a fault; it would be im- 
possible !” he went on, disregarding the scriptural inter- 
polation. 

“ My dear Cecil, I have really done all I can at pres- 
ent,” said Mrs. Eoscoe irritably. “ I have called on her, 
and I have had her here to dinner.” 

“ As to calling, my dear mother, you can scarcely con- 
sider it a ‘ call,’ seeing that you only just left your cards 
at the door I” 

“ Well, and how could we possibly set foot in the house 
of that wicked old woman. Lady Forrester !” cried out 
Mrs. Torrens fiercely. “ Do you not know that she is 
the worst of the whole brood ? A Forrester herself by 
birth, married to her first cousin — the vices of both 
branches of the family are centred in that woman — 
how can you imagine that your mother and I could 
enter her house !” 

“ I asked Miss Eleanor to dinner 1” murmured Mrs. 


112 


A BAD LOT. 


Eoscoe plaintively and soothingly. “ Surely I have 
done everything you have a right to expect of me, 
Cecil !” 

“ Of what use was it to ask her to a formal dinner 
party of sixteen people!” cried Cecil angrily. “What 
opportunity had you of improving your acquaintance 
with her in such a crowd — unless, indeed, you follow it 
up with something more?” 

“ But, my dear Cecil,” remonstrated his mother, “ is it 
desirable that I should put myself forward to encourage 
this disastrous affair ? Oh, my dear boy, why need you 
go on with this miserable engagement? Why cannot 
you find your happiness with that dear good girl whom 
you have known all your life ? who has no disreputable 
grandmother and mother — no shady out-at-elbows father 
and sisters to bring annoyance and discredit upon you — 
a girl whom you have known from her childhood up- 
wards ; whose pure innocent life is open to us all, and 
who, in addition, would bring you wealth and prosperity, 
and the certain security of a peaceful and well-ordered 
home. Oh, Cecil ! why could you not have been con- 
tent to find your happiness with her?” 

“Are you talking about little Ida Yincent, mother?” 
inquired Cecil. “Good gracious!” and then he burst 
out laughing. “ Why, I never thought about her in my 
life, nor should I ever have done so, even had I never met 
Nell Forrester! But really, dear mother, I don’t think 
it is quite fair to bring Ida’s name into this discussion, 
for I am quite sure she has nothing but the most sisterly 
regard for me.” 

Mrs. Eoscoe burst into tears. “You are my only 
child !” she sobbed. “ I had hoped so much for you, 
that you would have made such a good marriage.” 

Cecil felt distressed — he could not bear to see his 
mother cry. “ Dearest mother, it may not be a good 
marriage in a worldly sense of the words, but do look 
at things in the right way. If only one woman on 
earth can make a man happy, surely it is good for him 
to marry that one woman and none other? Even Aunt 
Torrens must admit that, I am sure,” he added, turning 
towards the elder woman and holding out a propitiatory 
hand to her. For in these early days Cecil would have 


ACROSS HYDE PARK. 


113 


moved heaven and earth to have softened the hearts of 
these two women towards the girl he loved. Mrs. Tor- 
rens took his hand. She was just a little bit melted, 
for hard and ungracious as she was, she was really fond 
of him. 

“ I am afraid you will repent of this blind infatuation, 
my dear boy ; you will find out your mistake !” 

“When 1 do, I will come and confess to you that I 
was mistaken. Aunt.” 

The upshot of it all was that it was agreed that Cecil 
should bring Nell to afternoon tea in Eutland Gate on 
the eve of her return home. Cecil had hoped great 
things from this concession, but when the tea party was 
over, he could not honestly say that his expectations and 
hopes had been in any way realized. 

The meeting had been full of constraint on both sides. 
Neither of the elder ladies was gifted with much of that 
gracious tact which helps out a difficult position. They 
were formally cold and studiously polite in their recep- 
tion of her, and Nell, who had honestly desired, for 
Cecil’s sake, to make herself winning and pleasant to 
them, was gradually thrown back upon herself and frozen 
into coldness and nervous shyness. 

The conversation by degrees became more and more 
laboured and difficult, and merged itself at last into a 
sort of subdued antagonism. Once or twice scarcely 
veiled little sneers and slighting remarks concerning her 
belongings made Nell’s temper rise and the angry colour 
flash into her face, while Cecil sat by feeling exceed- 
ingly uncomfortable. For instance, when she spoke of 
her grandmother’s advancing age and failing eyesight, 
Mrs. Torrens pursed up her lips into a disdainful silence, 
whilst Mrs. Roscoe suggested the consolations of religion 
as a fitting antidote for a worldly and ill-spent life. 
When again she happened to mention her father, Mrs. 
Roscoe immediately enquired after her uncle Robert, 
whom Nell had never seen. “ He and my father are 
not very good friends,” she explained a little hesitatingly. 

“ Ah ! I am not surprised to hear that,” Mrs. Roscoe 
had replied significantly. “ Your uncle Robert was not 
in the least like your father, and he was most fortunate in 
his wife ; he married a good woman and a thoroughbred 
h 10* 


114 


A BAD LOT. 


lady.” The subject was an awkward one, and Cecil 
changed it hastily by asking Nell if she had any news 
of her sisters, and then poor Nell, all unconsciously, put 
the finishing stroke to her misdemeanours by her per- 
fectly innocent and unconscious reply: 

“ Yes, I had a letter from Dottie last night. She was 
in high spirits. They had all been over in a wagonette 
to the Fenchester races, and only fancy, Dottie backed 
Hereward to win, and Jolly-boy for a place ! Can you 
imagine such luck! But she is always so lucky! it is 
quite wonderful. But, of course, she only put ten shill- 
ings on each, and got a very short price, as they made 
Hereward a hot &vourite at the last. Still she won 
three pounds ten altogether.” Then Nell began to be 
aware that Cecil was frowning at her vigorously, her 
voice faltered, and the confidences concerning her sister’s 
winnings died away into a confused silence. 

“Ahem! Do you mean to say that your sisters go 
to races ?” inquired Mrs. Torrens with a chilly severity, 
looking at her across the tea table. 

“ Always, when they can get a chance of going,” re- 
plied the girl a little defiantly. 

“ And when they go they bet, I understand ?” 

“ Certainly ! it isn’t much fun going to races unless 
you do!” And Nell’s heart thumped hotly and almost 
audibly, and there was a glitter that was not of peace 
in her beautiful eyes. Secretly she herself often deplored 
Dottie’s betting habits, but now she would have stood 
by her to the death. 

“And you? I suppose you also join in this ladylike 
and honourable amusement ?” inquired Mrs. Torrens with 
withering scorn. 

“No, no!” cried Cecil, rushing to the rescue. “Nell 
never bets or goes to races, do you, Nell ? I don’t believe 
you have ever been to a race in your life, have you ? 
But wo will go to Ascot some day, Nell, when we are 
married.” 

He took her hand a prisoner and clenched it hard 
within his own, to give her courage, and Nell, for his 
sake, curbed her temper and answered him with a smile : 

“ No, Cecil, that is quite true. I have never been to 
a race-course, but that is because I don’t really care to 


ACROSS HYDE PARK. 


115 


go, it would not amuse me. I shall like, however, to go 
to Ascot with you.’^ 

“ It is to be hoped that you do not go because you do 
not approve of such places, my dear, and I do not think 
Cecil would be at all wise in taking you to races,” said 
Mrs, Roscoe severely, “although with her husband a 
lady may certainly go anywhere — that is a very different 
thing.” And iN’ell was discreet, and held her tongue. 

No, it had not been a success — not in the least ! As 
they walked away together from the house in Rutland 
Gate, when it was over, Cecil was in the very lowest 
depths of depression. For some moments neither of 
them spoke. Their way lay across Hyde Park, and the 
silence of a misty November evening enveloped them 
on every side as they emerged from the noisy streets 
into the Park. It was not till then that either of them 
said a word. All at once, under cover of the darkness, 
Nell slipped her hand shyly into her lover’s. 

“ Dear Cecil,” she murmured. “ I am so sorry !” 

She had never been so near to loving him as at this 
moment. She seemed to realize that he was suffering, 
and for her sake, and that he had sympathized with her, 
and the perception of this brought her very near to 
him. 

“ Never mind, I don’t feel it very badly,” she continued 
consolingly. 

“ Oh, Nell, how good you are !” he answered brokenly. 
“ I wanted it to turn out so well, and it has all been such 
a miserable failure.” 

“Never mind,” said Nell once more ; “ it doesn’t hurt 
me.” 

“ You won’t give me up, will you, Nell ?” 

“ Oh, no. Why should I ? After all, it concerns no 
one else, only ourselves,” she added softly. 

For a moment his good angel tempted him to say to 
her ; “ Then let us set every one else at defiance and be 
married at once;” but more prudent thoughts flocked 
upon him before he had found courage to say the words. 
If he was in love, he was also very cautious — the love 
was an extraneous affair, but the caution was ingrain. 
After all, he knew very little about her, and he had 
promised his mother to wait. 


116 


A BAD LOT. 


Her thoughts must have followed his very closely, for 
in the next moment she gave him an opening, 

“ Easter is a long way off, Cecil ; and you and I are 
never likely to care for each other more than we do at 
present.” 

For half a moment he was silent. If only he had 
been brave and trustful ; if only there had not been so 
many other influences warring within him against those 
rare impulses that should have taught him instinctively 
to believe in her. And then there was his mother. A 
good man — and Cecil was essentially good, despite the 
faults of his character — does not easily turn round on 
his mother. Mrs. Eoscoe has not figured in these pages 
in any very amiable light, but although it saddened him 
unspeakably that she should have gone against him in 
this, the most momentous question of his life, Cecil could 
not, for all that, forget the long years of affection that had 
preceded these last few stormy weeks — the tender love 
that had watched over him from infancy, the untiring 
patience, the self-sacrifice, the long days and nights when 
he had been ill, when she had watched by his sick bed 
and nursed him hand and foot with unflagging devotion. 
Can a good son forget all this, utterly and wholly ; even 
for the sake of the woman whom he hopes to make his. 
wife ? Cecil at any rate was not one of those who could 
do so. He said to himself that his mother must come 
first, let who will be second. 

“Easter does seem a long way off, dearest,” he an- 
swered at last, and his answer was given with a sigh ; 
“ but time passes very quickly, and much as I should 
have liked to be married at an earlier date, I cannot but 
bow to my mother’s wishes ; one never does any harm 
bv waiting a little, and perhaps you and she will learn 
to know one another better by that time ; I earnestly 
hope so.” 

“ I would not reckon overmuch upon that hope, my 
dear boy,” replied Hell with a little laugh, which in 
spite of her utmost efforts was a trifle hard and scorn- 
ful. 

And then for some moments they walked on together 
in absolute silence. 

There is not the woman born who does not resent cold- 


ACROSS HYDE PARK. 


117 


ness and calculation in her lover. If for one moment it 
is she who has made the advance, and he who has drawn 
back, then not all her affection for him will serve to 
wash out the humiliation of that position with regard 
to him. Nell, who was proud, and whose love was not 
strong enough to enable her to overcome her pride, felt 
the sting of the repulse bitterly and deeply. For it is 
against nature and the rightful order of things that the 
man should be the one to draw back. It is from the 
woman’s side that doubts and misgivings should arise ; 
from her that objections and delays ought to suggest 
themselves, and if Nell in a generous impulse of the 
moment, moved by no selfish passion, by no personal in- 
clination, but simply by a desire to make things easier 
and better for them both, if she had for an instant re- 
versed that natural role betwixt man and woman, was it 
not for him to have met her more than half-way with 
grateful joy, and with an eager acceptance of her sug- 
gestion ? 

But he had not done so. He had only talked calmly 
and deliberately about the advantages of delay, and the 
superior claims of his mother’s wishes. A barrier, moun- 
tains high and hopelessly impassable, seemed to rise up 
all at once between them. The little rapprochement of 
heart that had drawn her so closely to him but a few 
moments ago vanished again into thin air; they were 
wide as the poles asunder now. Even Cecil felt it vaguely 
and intangibly, with an uneasy sense in his mind that 
he had somehow put himself in the wrong with her. 

“ Why are women so unreasonable I” he said to him- 
self almost with anger. 

By this time they had reached the wide open space in 
the centre of Hyde Park. It was quite dark; only far 
away to the north and to the east, the long lines of 
sickly gas lamps flickered palely yellow, through the 
faint mist which filled the air. There was no sky above, 
only a brown and murky atmosphere, whilst the outlines 
of the leafless trees pencilled themselves in inky black- 
ness against the gloom. The muffled hum of the busy 
city beyond scarce broke the stillness with its distant 
murmur, only now and again the footstep of a pedestrian 
hurrying past them or coming rapidly nearer along the 


118 


A BAD LOT. 


path, echoed ringingly with a weird distinctness through 
the silence of the November evening. It was a darkness 
that was not altogether dark, but was rather that semi- 
gloom that is neither night nor day, but to which the 
eye by degrees grows accustomed, and through which, 
after a time, it becomes possible to distinguish one object 
from another. 

All at once Cecil spoke. 

“ Nell,” he said, turning rather suddenly round to her 
and peering through the dusk into her face, “ I wish you 
would set my mind at rest about something.” 

“ What is it, Cecil?” 

“ You must not be angry with me, but there is some- 
thing that haunts me — about you.” 

“ About me 1” she repeated wonderingly. 

“ Of course I know it can be nothing at all, dear ; 
nothing but idle gossip — how could it be? I am so cer- 
tain of that, so certain of you altogether, that 1 could 
stake my existence upon it. But, I suppose I am nervous 
and upset to-night, and if I could hear you say just 
once, that there was nothing in it, I think I should be 
happier.” 

“ Suppose you tell me what it is you are alluding to,” 
said Nell, a little hardly and coldly. “I am not a 
magician, and I cannot possibly guess what you mean. 
What is this gossip, pray ?” 

“Ah, that is just what I cannot tell you!” replied the 
young man with a little uneasy laugh; “and what is 
more, the man who spoke of it did not tell me either. 
Oh Nell I you must take me for a lunatic, to be so 
stupidly vague I” 

“You are certainly somewhat incoherent,” assented 
the girl drily, looking straight in front of her. 

“ It was only — ” he went on lamely and awkwardly, 
after a moment’s pause, during which he hoped in vain 
that she would question him and so make it easier for 
him, but she said nothing, so he was forced to flounder 
on unaided — “only a man I met one day at a club din- 
ner who was speaking of your grandmother. He said 
something about one of her granddaughters having got 
into some scrape or adventure or other, with some man. 
But, of course, Nell, it could not be you, could it? Those 


ACROSS HYDE PARK. 


119 


sisters of yours are rather fast and flirty as we both 
know, and 1 daresay it was one of them ; I don’t want in 
the least to pry into your sisters’ private histories ; it 
would not be my business at all : but if you could iust 
tell me, Nell ” 

“ What am I to tell you ? about Dottie and Millie’s 
love affairs, do you mean ?” her voice was singularly dull 
and lifeless. 

“Oh no, no, Nell! why do you misunderstand me so? 
as if I cared about Dottie and Millie! they might have 
forty thousand lovers ; it wouldn’t signify a brass farthing 
to me ! it is you that I care about — you that are so dif- 
ferent to them — so sweet, so good, so true and then 
he came to a dead stop, and there was a silence. 

“Well?” said Nell, presently, still in the same dull 
and uninterested voice. “We don’t seem getting any 
nearer to it, do we ? if you will tell me exactly what you 
wish me to say ” 

“Oh Nell, you are very hard to me; why can’t you 
say it of your own accord ? why can’t you just say, 

‘ Cecil, I swear to you that I never did a single thing 
in all my life that was wrong or sinful,’ that is all I 
want.” 

“ That would be rather a large order, wouldn’t it ?” she 
said with a little mirthless laugh, “ seeing that we all 
confess ourselves to be miserable sinners every Sunday 
of our lives !” 

“ You know that is not what I mean in the very least ! 
you are angry with me for my baseless suspicions, and 
you are just playing with me and trying to torture me. 
For God’s sake be just to me, remember how many 
people there are who are ready to say horrid things 
just now, and who would be glad enough to put false 
impressions in my heart about you; but I believe in 
you, Nell, upon my soul 1 do ; only be good to me and 
say to me just once with your own lips : ‘ Cecil, there is 
nothing in my past life to be ashamed of, or that can 
ever be brought up against me, to bring the faintest 
shadow of disgrace upon my husband’s name.’ Say that 
to me of yourself, and as there is a God above us 1 will 
banish all these cruel doubts from my mind for ever.” 

For a few seconds again there was silence, and many 


120 


A BAD LOT. 


things rushed through Nell’s heart in a passionate 
tumult. 

She would tell him nothing — nothing! he did not de- 
serve her confidence ; moreover the story was so long — 
and so ugly — so impossible to explain, he would never 
understand, he who was conventional and strait-laced in 
his ideas! Besides she had done no wrong; she might 
have been foolish, but she had not been sinful — not even 
in thought — she had saved herself from the danger, and 
nobody had ever known of it. Ah ! in the name of 
Ibrtune how had this rumour got about ? Had not her 
grandmother assured her that nobody would ever hear 
of it — that the grave would soon close over herself, the 
only one who knew the story — that to speak of it to 
Cecil would be foolishness, for that Yane Harley had 
disappeared and would never cross her path any more ? 

Why should she give herself away then ? and to this 
man of all others, who would be so hard and so merciless 
to her childish fault? 

And it had not been a sin, she could answer him in 
that, honestly and truthfully enough, if indeed it were 
worth her while to answer him at all. 

And for one wild moment it came into her heart to 
rid herself of him for ever. He was suspicious and 
cautious ; he was cold and he was strait-laced— she hated 
all these things, and she did not love him ! Why should 
she not dismiss him at once and for ever from her life? 
Why not say to him now, at once and plainly : 

“ I have nothing to tell you, but you can go out of my 
existence and out of my heart. I do not love you enough 
to forgive you your cruel suspicions.” 

But before she had spoken the words, she thought 
about her father and her sisters. What a horrible and 
unspeakable disappointment it would be to them all, 
were she to break off her engagement. How stupid, 
too, to give up her one chance of a better life — how 
great a mistake to throw away this rare opportunity of 
making a marriage that would be of the utmost benefit 
and advantage to them all ; and more than all else, were 
she to answer his question in such a fashion, would it not 
be giving to him a tacit admission of the things he had 
brought up against her ? This last consideration turned 


*‘7 AM GOING TO TAKE CARE OF YOU.” 121 


the scale. She could not confide wholly in him ; she 
did not dare to leave him with that unanswered question 
on his lips. 

So, like many another woman before her, 'NeW For- 
rester took the middle way of reticence and discretion ; 
of half truth, that is not truth at all. Yet she told him 
no lie ; she perjured her soul by no false oath ; she 
adhered strictly at least to the letter, if not to the spirit 
of the truth. 

“ My dear Cecil,” she said to him quietly, “ you are 
exciting yourself very foolishly, still I am quite ready 
to swear to you that there is nothing I have ever done 
in all my life that can bring disgrace upon you, or shame 
upon myself. Will that content you ?” 

He seized her hand and pressed it gratefully between 
his own. 

“ My dearest Hell, I knew it, I knew it !” he cried 
gladly and earnestly. “ Cod bless you for those words. 
How nothing, not even the shadow of evil, can ever 
come between us again.” 

And as he spoke the words, the tall figure of a man 
passed close to them in the darkness. He half turned 
as he went by, and the dull light of the murky sky 
struck for a second upon his pale face and wasted frame. 

Hell saw him perfectly. 

It was Yane Harley. 


CHAPTEE XIII. 

“I AM GOING TO TAKE CARE OF YOU.” 

The following afternoon, rather to her surprise. Hell 
found that Cecil was waiting for her at Liverpool Street 
Station, in order to see her off by the three o’clock train. 
She knew that he was very busy, and that it must have 
given him some thought and trouble to accomplish this, 
and she felt that she ought to be duly gratified by the 
attention ; yet, somehow, she was scarcely glad to see 
him. 


F 


11 


122 


A BAD LOT. 


When he had looked after her lup^gage and taken a 
place for her in the train, had secured her a foot-warmer, 
and bought every newspaper and magazine that he could 
find for her amusement during her solitary journey, 
there still wanted some six or eight minutes to the hour, 
during which they walked up and down the platform 
together. 

Cecil was in good spirits and very affectionate in his 
manner. Nell was distraite and somewhat apathetic. 
The conversation of the previous evening, which had 
produced in him a sense of elation and of satisfaction, 
had left her sore and unresponsive towards him, whilst 
his words and questionings, that had been so immediately 
followed by that half-glimpse of a face that had gone 
by in the darkness, had depressed and subdued her with 
a sense of impending calamity. 

“ By the way, Nell,” Cecil was saying to her, and they 
were the first words he had spoken that had aroused 
any interest in her, “I never told you w’hat an im- 
pression you made the other night on my^ friend Temple, 
lie was quite enthusiastic about you.” 

“ Did he talk about me to you, then ?” she inquired a 
little quickly, feeling all at once that men were hateful, 
every one of them! and that she detested them all. 

“ Oh yes, I should rather think he did ! And let me 
tell you, Nell, that is a very great compliment from old 
Julian, for he is the most inveterate woman-hater and 
the most determined old bachelor that I ever met. He 
cares for nothing but his sport and his books. He never 
takes the slightest notice of any woman, and he looks 
upon love and marriage as positive misfortunes to man- 
kind.” 

“ I ought then, I suppose, to be very much flattered 
by his approval of me,” remarked Nell coldly. 

“ Well, it certainly shows that he was really’’ impressed 
by you, and I was naturally^ pleased at his telling me 
how much he admired you ; it is your conversation which 
seems to have especially delighted him.” 

Nell made no answer, and Cecil cried out immediately : 

“Talk of the old gentleman! Why, if there is not 
Julian Temple himself! He must be going by this train. 
Hullo, Julian, old man, where are you off to?” 


“/ AM GOING TO TAKE CARE OF YOU” 123 


Mr. Temple, who wore a rough travelling ulster, a pot 
hat, and carried a gun-case in his hand, stopped and re- 
turned his friend’s greeting, taking off his hat to Nell, 
who bowed to him so very distantly that for a moment 
he thought she did not recognize him. 

“ I am going down to a place called Dinely, just beyond 
Fenchester, for some shooting,” he said, in answer to 
Cecil’s question. “ Are you going to the same part of 
the world ?” 

“ No, I am not ; but Miss Forrester is going home by 
this train. Marshlands is the last station before you 
get to Fenchester. You might look after her for me, 
Julian, as she is travelling alone.” 

Temple bowed. “ Delighted, I am sure ; if there is 
anything I can do for Miss Forrester I hope she will 
command me. But I will not inflict myself upon you 
by the way. Miss Forrester, for, as you see, I am smoking!” 

“Now isn’t that just like old Temple?” cried Cecil, 
laughing, as his friend walked away in the wake of a 
porter, who came to relieve him of his gun-case. “I 
told you he was a woman-hater I I believe he would 
rather perish than be bottled up alone in a railway car- 
riage for two hours with a woman. Even you, Nell, are 
not sufficiently attractive to him for that. But come, 
you ought to be taking your place ; time is just up.” 

The parting words between them were necessarily 
brief and hurried, and a few minutes later the train was 
steaming slowly out of the station. 

Nell sat by herself in her corner, surrounded by the 
literature which Cecil had provided for her entertain- 
ment. She did not look at it. The newspapers and 
magazines lay unheeded beside her. 

Her eyes were fixed vacantly out of the window upon 
the swiftly shifting scene. The crowded eastern district, 
with its countless rows of mean and squalid houses, with 
the factory chimneys rising up gaunt and tall amongst 
them ; the long line of ships’ masts, stretching away like 
a leafless avenue towards the horizon, along the course 
of the invisible river; then those wide, desolate spaces — 
unlovely and repulsive wastes, that cling to the outskirts 
of a great city, set round with blackened fields and 
stunted shrubs ; then, bye-and-bye, neat suburban villas. 


124 


A BAD LOT, 


each in its trim garden ; then more fields — broad green 
meadows these, interspersed with lanes and woods and 
streams, with farms and nestling villages amongst them, 
and here and there an ivy-covered tower or pointed 
spire; till, at last, London and its filthy slums and its 
trim suburbs are left altogether behind, and the wide, 
sweet-scented country opens out on either side. 

Nell sat looking at all these things as they flew 
past her, with eyes that saw none of them. Her own 
thoughts engrossed her so completely that she was blind 
to all outward things. 

Her whole mind was filled with one thing, one indi- 
vidual; she could think of nothing else. It was not 
Cecil Eoscoe, her lover, whose farewell words might 
still have been ringing in her ears, who thus absorbed 
Nell Forrester’s thoughts. Neither was it that other dark 
figure, who had flashed back again out of the shadows 
of the past so unexpectedly and so startlingly last night 
into living reality. 

All night long, indeed, she had lain awake, thinking 
about Yane Harley. Her mind had worn itself out in 
vain conjectures as to the whys and wherefores of his 
reappearance. For many hours, indeed, she had tried 
to cheat herself into the belief that she had been mis- 
taken, and that the man that had passed her in the dark- 
ness of the park was some stranger, whose chance re- 
semblance to Harley had quickened her pulses into a 
momentary delusion. But she knew this was not the 
case; she knew perfectly well that it was Harley him- 
self. His face was thin and aged, and he looked ill, but 
it was Harley all the same. He had not changed so 
much as to leave her in any real doubt about his identity. 
The bare fact of his having returned to England and of 
her having seen him was sufficiently disturbing to her 
peace of mind. To meet him again, just now, was the 
very last desire of her heart. She wanted to cover up 
and forget that past chapter of her life, to deny it alto- 
gether if necessary, not to have it thus forcibly brought 
back to her in all its undying intensity. 

Towards morning she had fallen into an uneasy slum- 
ber, and with daylight, as is so often the case after a 
sleepless night of anxieties, that are apt to assume ex- 


“/ AM GOING TO TAKE CARE OF YOU.” 125 


aggerated proportions in our minds during the hours of 
darkness, things presented themselves to her in a some- 
what less formidable aspect. For if she had seen and 
recognized Colonel Darley, she was, at any rate, perfectly 
convinced that he had not seen her. Even had he seen 
her, she felt certain that passing her thus, in the dark- 
ness, it would have been impossible for him to have 
recognized her. She had grown out of all knowledge. 
She had changed from a lanky, half-fledged girl into a 
tall and fully-developed woman. Moreover, it seemed 
to her highly improbable that he would even remember 
her now. That which was so dire and terrible a memory 
to her was no doubt to him only one out of the many in- 
significant nothings upon the troubled stream of a dark 
and stormy life. She resolved to tell no one, not even 
her grandmother, that she had seen him, and she told 
herself that, in all human probability, she would never 
come across him any more. It was not Yane Darley 
who troubled her at this moment. 

The man who now filled her whole mind so as to leave 
room for no other thought or feeling within her was 
Julian Temple. 

An unreasonable anger against him overpowered her. 
He had talked her over with Cecil ! discussed her looks, 
probably — praised her intelligence — and made merry 
with him, no doubt, over the conversation they had had to- 

f ether. And she, who had rashly opened out her innermost 
eart and soul to this man, who had talked to him freely 
of those vague dreams and fancies which she had never 
put into words before, who had believed herself to have 
been understood, and that she had in return been the re- 
cipient of his most sacred confidences ! And all the time 
he had only been drawing her on, turning her inside out, 
as it were, in order to “ damn her with faint praise” to 
Cecil ; and, no doubt, to turn her into ridicule afterwards 
to other people ! 

She remembered that it was what Miss Yincent had 
said of him — that he was false and dangerous, a man to 
be dreaded and avoided. 

“I hate him !” said Nell aloud to herself in the solitude 
of her carriage. “ How I hate him !” 

The tears stood in her eyes as she spoke the words, and 
11 * 


126 


A BAD LOT. 


yet assuredly they were not all tears of hatred and of 
anger. There must have been something else, some other 
feeling more subtle still down in the very depths of her 
heart to have disturbed her so much. She thought of 
him now, travelling eastwards in the same train as her- 
self — alone, perhaps, too, as she was alone. 

Why had he refused to travel down with her ? Why 
had he put this needless and humiliating slight upon her ? 
Was it not that he despised her ; that, in spite of his pre- 
tended admiration and interest in her, he did not appar- 
ently consider her society worth his while to seek ? She 
recollected that he had not spoken to her again that even- 
ing at Mrs. Koscoe’s ; he had not even wished her good- 
night ; he had gone away hurriedly soon after the gentle- 
men had come upstairs, without throwing so much as a 
look in her direction. 

And then the tears that were filling her eyes rolled 
slowly over and dropped, one by one, down upon her 
hands. 

“ There is something unlucky about me,” she thought 
sadly; “there is a fatality against me! Well, I have al- 
ways got Cecil ! I suppose I ought to be satisfied, for he 
is kind and good. I wonder why I begin to find him so 
tedious and so irritating ? I must be very ungrateful, for 
he is staunch and true ; although I suppose his mother de- 
tests his engagement, and he himself disapproves of me, 
so there can be very little inducement to him to stick to 
me. I wonder whether I shall have got sick to death 
of him between this and Easter !” 

And then she took up The World and tried to become 
interested in it. But November afternoons are short, and 
very soon the greyness of dusk began to steal over the 
wintry landscape, through which the express train 
rushed ceaselessly on. There was a heavy, lowering sky, 
but no rain ; only the wind rose sullenly and swept in 
long melancholy gusts over the world. It was the sort 
of evening that warned one that there would be storms 
at sea to-night. The riven clouds parted now and then 
into ragged, tattered spaces, through which a pale sky 
gleamed with momentary flashes of light, and then, once 
more, they banked themselves up into dark and frowning 
masses. 


“J AM GOING TO TAKE CARE OF YOU.” 127 


!N^ell could not see to read any longer, she leant back in 
her corner and strained her eyes for some time, peering 
out into the ever-increasing darkness. Then, because she 
had slept so badly last night, and because she was worn 
out and wearied by conflicting and harassing thoughts, 
her eyes insensibly closed. The rhythmical noises of the 
swift- rushing train began to mingle with her thoughts, 
and the thoughts themselves grew blurred and indis- 
tinct, the even throbbing sounds mixing themselves up 
strangely and harmoniously into fragmentary, half-con- 
scious dreams, until, at last, even these ceased altogether 
— and Nell fell soundly asleep. 

For a long time there was silence, and all the vexed 
problems of her life were at rest. Then, all at once, she 
started up wide awake and breathless, with a sudden rush 
of blood to her head and heart, and with that queer in- 
stantaneous conviction of something being wrong that 
attacks one at the very first breath of returning con- 
sciousness. The train had stopped. Yet there were no 
station lights ; no light at all through the utter darkness 
without, only a sound of voices — confused shouts and 
questions — a vague Babel of ever-increasing human con- 
sternation that mingled strangely with the meanings of 
the wind. Nell looked at her watch — in about twenty 
minutes’ time she was due at Marshlands. Why, then, 
was the train at a standstill ? There could be no station 
here within five or six miles. She began to be fright- 
ened, and let down the glass and leant out. What she 
saw was not calculated to reassure her ; heads were lean- 
ing out of every carriage window ; a few passengers had 
alighted, and all were shouting questions to the guard, 
or exchanging apprehensive remarks to each other. The 
guard ran rapidly past her carriage. 

“What is the matter? why are we stopping?” she 
cried out with the rest. 

He did not answer her, but only ran on the faster, the 
bull’s-eye lantern that swung in his hand flashing a flut- 
tering light into the darkness as he hurried by. 

At that moment a face that she knew looked up at her 
from below the carriage. 

“ Is that you. Miss Forrester ? Don’t be frightened.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Temple 1” 


128 


A BAB LOT. 


There was a ring of intense relief in her voice. How 
glad she was to see him ! She forgot all about her anger 
and her hatred. 

“ What is the matter? Is anything wrong?” 

“Nothing with our train; but the signals are against 
us. As far as I can gather there seems to have been 
some accident or break down in front of us to a luggage 
train. I understand the line is not clear ; we may be 
kept, that is all.” 

Just then the guard came back with the stoker, run- 
ning hard ; as he came he called out some directions at 
each carriage door and opened it as he passed. 

“ What does he say ?” faltered Nell. 

“We are all to get out ; there is another train behind 
us ; the stoker is going to run back to the signal box be- 
hind to stop it ; there is no danger,” he added, reassur- 
ingly, “ only he says it will be safer to get out.” 

“ No danger, sir,” and the guard echoed his words as 
he threw open the door of Nell’s carriage. “She can’t 
be up for another ten minutes, and he’ll be able to get 
back to the signal box to stop her in plenty of time ; but 
it’s best to be on the safe side.” 

The passengers did not need to be told this twice ; 
everybody scrambled out of the train in double-quick 
time with as much alacrity as though the expected train 
were actually in sight. 

Temple helped Nell to jump down from the car- 
riage. She was trembling very much, but she did not 
speak. 

“ I am afraid you will be cold. You may as well have 
your cloak,” he said, as they were moving on, and he 
turned back towards the carriage in order to fetch it 
from the rack, where in her hurry she had forgotten it. 
For a moment Nell lost her head ; she caught him by 
the arm and tried to draw him back. 

“ Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t go back I What does it 
matter about the cloak ? Pray, pray, don’t go back to 
the carriage; the other train might come. I entreat 
you not to go.” 

He looked at her for half a second with a little sur- 
prise. The lights from the train shone full upon her 
face ; he saw that she was white down to her lips and 


“/ AM GOING TO TAKE CARE OF YOUN 129 

that her eyes were full of terror. There was a note of 
positive agony in her voice. 

He disengaged himself quietly from her clinging 
hands. 

“ There is no danger at all. Did you not hear the 
guard say that there were ten minutes to spare? And 
you must have your cloak. I shall not be a moment 
gone. Please stand back a little farther — go off the line 
by the hedge, you will be out of the crowd there, and I 
will come back to you immediately.” 

When he came back to her with the cloak over his 
arm he found that she was sobbing quietly but almost 
hysterically. He wrapped the cloak carefully and ten- 
derly around her, and then he drew her arm under his. 
Her sobs ceased at once and she became perfectly calm. 

“There is nothing at all to be frightened at now, 
everybody is safe, and the man will in all probability be 
in loads of time to have the other train stopped at the 
signal. You are not frightened now, are you?” 

“ Oh, no. Please forgive me for being so stupid,” she 
added shyly. 

“ It was not stupid ; it is perfectly natural that you 
should be upset. But it is all right ; I am with you, and 
I am going to take care of you.” 

A sense of safety, of peace and protection, stole over 
her at his words. Somehow she minded nothing any 
more now, although they were stumbling over some 
rough broken ground and she could not see a yard be- 
fore her, and nearly tumbled on her nose. 

“ I am going to take you across this stony place into 
that field,” he went on. “ I see something that looks like 
a fallen tree or stump out there, and if you will sit down 
and wait for a few minutes, I will go and see what I can 
find out about the chances of our being able to get on.” 

She raised no objection, and he left her about fifty 
yards from the line in a field by the side of a straight, 
narrow dyke, where the root of a fallen pollard willow 
that slanted across the stream afforded her a seat. 

She sat quite still and waited for him. JSTow that she 
had her cloak she was not at all cold, although it had 
not been the cold that had made her tremble. She felt 
quite warm now and strangely happy. 


A BAD LOT. 


130 

And 5^et the position was not a very cheerful one. 

The arrested train lay in front of her like a great 
shining serpent, the engine snorting forth fire and steam 
redly against the dark sky, and the long line of lighted 
windows curving away behind it into the gloom. The pas- 
sengers were mostly huddled together for companionship 
and comfort in a little crowd near the guard and the 
engine-driver ; a few of them had, like herself, strayed 
across the railway and the narrow ditch into the fields, 
and were walking up and down either to keep them- 
selves warm or to curb their impatience. 

Presently Temple came back to her. 

“ I am so sorry — I am sadly afraid that we shall have 
a long time to wait. A man has just come up from the 
next station to say the line won’t be clear for at least an 
hour. I am so afraid you will catch cold. You must 
not, at any rate, sit still.” He held out his hand to her 
and made her rise from her lowly seat. 

“ Where are we?” asked Nell. “ 1 can hardly see yet, 
but I ought to know where we are.” 

“ The guard says about six or seven miles from Marsh- 
lands — that is your station, is it not? But the luggage- 
train has gone otf the rails about three miles otf. Miss 
Forrester, 1 wonder how it would be if you were to walk 
home? It has just occurred to me that if you knew 
your way it would be much better for you than stand- 
ing shivering here. The luggage, of course, will bo 
taken on to Fenchester in time, and if you are a good 
walker I believe it would be the best thing to do, for 
one cannot tell how long it may be before the line is 
clear.” 

Nell had turned round. She was shading her eyes with 
her hands and peering into the darkness behind her. 
All at once the hurrying clouds parted a little in the 
west, and a pale and watery moon struggled faintly out 
for a moment from behind them. Nell caught sight of 
a familiar object: a little cluster of cottages nestling 
together in a hollow of the flat country, and a low 
church tower with a whirling weathercock, that glit- 
tered for a moment in the faint moonlight. 

“ Ah, I know perfectly where I am,” she cried. “ That 
is the village of Coldbeach. There must be a road on 


HOW THE ROMANCE'' WAS CONTINUED. 131 

the other side of this dyke. I know the way very well 
indeed ; it is only about five miles from here to Marsh- 
lands House. I can find my way home easily.” 

“ But can you walk so far?” 

“ Oh, yes. Fancy asking a country-bred girl if she 
can walk five miles !” and Nell laughed quite merrily. 
“ I am quite sure, Mr. Temple,” she continued, “ that it 
will be much the best thing to do as you say ; for it is 
not only the waiting, but I am afraid my father and 
sisters might be anxious ; they may perhaps hear that 
there is an accident on the line, and if I don’t turn 


“ Yes, I had thought of that, too. That decides it. 
If you will describe your box to me, I will go and speak 
to the guard about the luggage.” 

He went, and very soon returned to her. The moon 
was struggling out once more, although the wind seemed 
to be rising. 

“ If you will just see me across this field into the 
road, Mr. Temple,” said Nell, as he rejoined her, “that 
is all I shall want. I shall be all right then, and be able 
to get home perfectly.” 

“ What do you mean ?” he said, drawing her hand 
under his arm and peering down to look at her face 
under her hat. “ You don’t suppose that I am going 
to leave you to walk home by yourself, do you ? That 
would be a curious arrangement, truly I Have I not 
told you already that I consider you to be under my 
charge ? I am going to take care of you.” 


CHAPTEE XIV. 

HOW THE “romance” WAS CONTINUED. 

It was a wild, rough night, yet the moon shone out 
fitfully from behind the hurrying clouds that racked 
across the wind-driven sky. In the intervals of light the 
whole flat country shone like burnished silver, and every- 


132 


A BAD LOT. 


thing prosaic and homely became softened and poetized 
under the tender radiance. The ugly little cottages, the 
pollard willows along the straight dykes, the clusters of 
farm buildings and hay-stacks, dotted sparsely across the 
wide plain, were transfigured into loveliness by the en- 
chanting witchery of the white moonlight. Then the 
moon would withdraw herself again behind the swift- 
rushing clouds, and all would be plunged once more into 
impenetrable darkness. 

It was now past six o’clock, and the wind had risen 
very much. The willows bent and lashed their boughs 
to the fury of it ; the scanty grass in the meadows was 
swept like the surface of a lake by its violence ; far away 
to the north a windmill flung its gaunt black arms wildly 
into the air, and Nell Forrester, with bent head and tot- 
tering steps, had sometimes hard work to keep her foot- 
ing, even although she clung to Julian Temple’s strong 
supporting arm. 

Eddies of dust — the prelude, perhaps, of rain — spun 
along the straight white road before them ; and presently 
out of the dim mystery of the night, a flock of wild duck 
rose from the ooz}^ marsh hard by, whirling with eerie 
cries and a loud fluttering of wings close over their heads, 
ere they vanished quickly into the blackness of the sky. 

They had now left the stranded train far behind them ; 
the twinkling lights of the village of Coldbeach had 
faded away ; all was wide, and vast, and empty on every 
side of them ; their solitude was as complete as though 
they had been in a desert. 

For some time they hardly spoke, for it was hard work 
to breast the boisterous wind, and there seemed a certain 
physical impossibility of starting anything like coherent 
conversation. Yet, perhaps, there were other secret in- 
fluences at work in the heart of each that helped to keep 
them silent. 

“Do you find it very hard work?” said Temple at 
length, as a fiercer blast seemed to threaten to blow them 
both away. 

“ Oh no, I love it!” cried Nell, and the suppressed ex- 
citement in her ringing voice made him look at her curi- 
ously. The moon at that moment shone full in her face ; 
he could see that her eyes danced and sparkled, that her 


HOW THE ROMANCE'^ WAS CONTINUED. 133 


parted lips were lines of scarlet, and that there was a 
flush of crimson roses upon her cheeks. 

“Don’t you love the wind?” she continued gaily. “ I 
am so used to it. I have been out in it all my life. No- 
where, except, I suppose, on the sea, does the wind blow 
as it does here across these dear level plains of my native 
country.” 

“ Yet it is a very rough night for a lady to be out in,” 
he demurred. 

“ It is delicious, and I adore it !” she cried with en- 
thusiasm. “ See how the moonshine washes across the 
world, and how the black clouds hurry along to catch up 
the light ; and then the rough wind comes roaring after 
them both. Oh, it is glorious ! Feel how the wonderful 
invisible thing whirls about us both ! Does it not seem 
to blow right through one, knocking away by the sheer 
force of it everything that is base and mean and cow- 
ardly within one? blowing it all clean away out of one’s 
soul and leaving it empty and swept of all that is evil.” 

His heart began to beat in sympathy with her thought. 

“ It is here that the first chapter of my ‘ romance’ must 
be written ; and it is you who are my priestess and my 
inspiration,” he said, quickly, losing his head a little as 
he caught the infection of her mood. “See yonder! 
There go the ‘ Eisen Souls,’ flying with the clouds across 
the world I Miss Forrester, from where do you get your 
ideas ? they are immense ! It seems to me that you must 
know and understand the sea as well as you do the fens, 
to love these wild winds so dearly. Have you ever been 
on a yacht ?” 

For a moment her heart stood still, and the buoyant 
exhilaration of her mood changed. 

“ Once. A long time ago,” she answered in a low voice. 
For the whole world and its kingdoms she could not have 
given an evasive answer to Julian Temple. 

“And you loved it? The waves as well as the winds 
must have set your pulses dancing ?” he asked, longing 
to draw her out still more. 

“ Yes, I loved it I I remember how the spray dashed 
into my face, and how my hair blew long and wide be- 
hind me, and how the sails swung and courtesied to the 
breeze, and the sea-gulls whirled their white wings about 

12 


134 


A BAD LOT. 


the hurrying ship. Eut,” and she seemed to recall herself 
with an effort from a pursuance of these recollections, 
“ but it was a long time ago, and 1 was only a child.” 

Something in her manner set him wondering when it 
was — whose yacht she had been upon, and where she 
had sailed. 

“ It is a pity that you, who love nature so well, should 
not see more of the world ; but perhaps you may travel 
some day.” 

“ It is not likely — we are poor, you see, and poor people 
stay at home.” 

“ But when you are married ? perhaps you will go 
abroad with Cecil ?” 

“ Oh — Cecil !” her voice became uninterested. The 
mention of her betrothed’s name brought her thoughts 
swiftly down again from heaven to earth. “ I had for- 
gotten Cecil,” she added simply and almost too truth- 
fully for prudence. 

The words set him thinking. 

“After all, what does it matter?” he said to himself 
“One evening — and then no more of it! Until I stand 
behind a white-robed bride at the chancel step, and find 
myself forced into the role of her bridegroom’s friend 
and supporter. After to-night I shall certainly not see 
her again till her wedding day. What harm can it do 
her, or me, that we should become friends and talk openly 
and freelj^ to one another? Besides, I cannot help my- 
self — it is not my doing that we are here alone together 
in the darkness and the solitude. I did not seek this 
position ; it was forced upon me by fate.” 

Then she spoke again, and he shook himself rid of yet 
another thought that flashed into his mind, and that was 
not over profitable to dwell upon. 

“ What an odd thing life is I” Nell was saying musingly ; 
and in her words there seemed a faint echo of his owm 
thoughts. “ How strange that you and I should be here, 
alone together in this wdld darkness — just you, and I, 
and the silent world ! I feel as though we had been 
friends for years. And yet, would you believe it, Mr. 
Temple? an hour ago I hated 3^ou, and swore to myself 
that I would never speak to you again.” 

“My dear Miss Forrester!” he exclaimed in unfeigned 


HOW THE ROMANCE'' WAS CONTINUED, 135 


amazement at this astounding confession. You hated 
me ! Great God ! what had 1 done ?” 

JS’ell laughed merrily; she Avas clinging with both 
hands to his arm, simply in order to steady herself; and 
her hurrying feet tripped double time to his long foot- 
steps — much as on that other evening long ago she had 
clung to Yane Darley’s arm, and had danced along beside 
him ; for her mood had changed, and she was a child 
again. 

‘‘ It sounds horrible, does it not ? But it only means 
that I was foolish and fancied things. I had got it into 
my head — it was from something Cecil said to me — that 
you were only laughing at me the other night, and that 
you repeated to him ail we had talked about together. 
I — I could not have borne it,’’ she added, with a little 
hot impatience. “If you had done so I should have 
been right to hate you, should I not ? But 1 am sure it 
is not true, and that you did not.” 

“ Certainly I did not,” he answered, a little soberly. 
“ Did Cecil say so ?” 

“I^ot exactly. Oh, no; he only said that you had 
spoken about me afterwards to him. It was all my own 
stupid fancy, I am sure, that you had repeated to him 
the things we had talked about.” 

The “ we” struck with an inexpressible charm upon 
his ears, and then he pulled himself together and shiv- 
ered a little. 

“ I should never have dreamt of doing so,” he answered 
after a moment, very gravely indeed ; and then he was 
silent for a long time — thinking deeply. 

He was puzzled and perplexed. That Cecil did not 
the least understand or appreciate lier had been patent 
to him from the first. Cecil was very much in love with 
her — so much was he in love that he had flung to the 
winds, for her sake, much of bis natural prudence and 
circumspection. Ho was, indeed, prepared to make what 
was undoubtedly a very bad and undesirable marriage 
for the love of her; and yet Julian had been quick 
enough to perceive that Cecil was merely under the 
spell of this girl’s wonderful personal charm — he was 
not in the least alive to the especial beauty of her mind. 
But at least he had supposed that Nell herself must be 


136 


A BAD LOT. 


genuinely fond of her lover; yet now, after what she 
had just said, he began to doubt even this. Neither, on 
the other hand, did she seem to him to be the sort of 
woman who would be likely to marry a man from merely 
mercenary motives. Besides, Cecil, although fairly well 
otf, was by no means a catch in the matrimonial market. 
If she did not love and believe in him with all her heart, 
what in the name of fortune was she going to marry 
him for? 

He argued the question out within his own mind, 
simply and solely as an independent bystander — or so 
he told himself. He was the friend of both. Was there 
nothing that, as a friend, he could do to bring about a 
deeper sympathy between them ? 

Meanwhile, Nell was chattering to him lightly and 
gaily, unconscious of the tempest of contradicting 
thoughts which she bad aroused in him. She was tell- 
ing him about her sisters : about Hottie and her betting, 
about Millie and her mania for horses and dogs, and all 
about the crowd of admirers — Messrs. Popham and Drake 
and Toulmin — and their nicknames, and of how they 
kept the house alive by their comings and goings. 

“ Not that they amuse me at all, Mr. Temple ; for, as 
a matter of fact, I think them all terribly uninteresting.” 

He listened with a half attention. He was still think- 
ing about Cecil, and wondering why in the world she 
was going to marry him. A sort of dogged determina- 
tion was upon him ; he was bent upon assuming the 
attitude of mediator between her and him. He told 
himself that he was Cecil’s friend first and foremost, 
and he forced himself to lead the conversation back to 
him; and yet all the time he was secretly conscious — 
with a consciousness that irritated him — that it was not 
so much in Cecil’s interests as because of a burning and 
altogether reprehensible curiosity to fathom the depths 
of Nell’s heart that he did so. 

“ Cecil is such a good chap,” he observed, breaking in 
upon her confidences about her family. 

‘‘Cecil? Oh, yes, he is.” Nothing more. 

“ I am glad that he is going to be so thoroughly happy ; 
no one deserves it more.” 

Nell laughed. 


HOW THE ^^ROMANCH' WAS CONTINUED. 137 


“ Will he be so thoroughly happy ? I thought you 
looked upon men about to marry as suicidal maniacs, 
Mr. Temple. Cecil himself told me so. He says you 
are a woman-hater.” 

“ That is because I am not married myself. An old 
bachelor is always called a woman-hater.” 

Nell would have liked to ask him why he did not 
marry, but she had not the courage, and Julian profited 
by the moment of silence to drag back Cecil’s name by 
the head and heels — she should not evade the subject 
like this. 

“ I hope that you and Cecil will be very happy,” he 
persisted, a little stupidly perhaps. 

“ Thanks. That is very kind of you. I daresay we 
shall get along as well as most married couples do.” 

“ Miss Forrester, I cannot bear that strain of cynicism 
in you. In heaven’s name, why, at your age, fresh and 
unspoilt as you are, with youth and beauty and a lover 
who is devoted to you, why should you speak like a 
hardened woman of the world who has found out the 
bitterness and the falseness of life’s promises ? I cannot 
understand it in you — cannot reconcile it with what I 
know of you.” 

He spoke hotly, from his heart. Cecil and his in- 
terests faded once more out of his mind. It was Nell, 
half child, half woman, with the soul of a poet and with 
the heart of a cynic, that absorbed him now. 

“ Why should you suppose me to be what you say — 
fresh and unspoilt ?” she asked in a low voice. ‘‘ You 
don’t imagine that because I have my dreams and my 
ideals, I am so foolish as to believe I can ever realize 
them ? There can be no greater mistake than that. I 
am young, as you say — I am twenty-one, but at twenty- 
one a woman is old enough to be disillusioned. Do you 
suppose I don’t know how hard the world is upon girls 
who have been brought up as I have been? We For- 
resters have a bad name, Mr. Temple, from Granny 
downwards — for Granny was a Forrester herself, you 
know; she and my grandfather were first cousins — and 
we are all pariahs. No one knows this better than you 
do. Cecil knows it, too; and so does his mother, who 
will not be civil to me as long as there is a hope that 

12 * 


138 


A BAD LOT. 


Cecil may throw me over between this and Easter. And 
so he would, if it were not that he is in love with me. 
Oh yes, I will do him that justice; he does love me now 
very much. It only remains to be seen whether in the 
long run he does not love his mother and respectability 
better.” 

“ What you say grieves me very much,” said Temple 
.in a low voice of constraint. “ I had hoped and believed 
that you were both so happy ; and, indeed, I think that 
Cecil will be more staunch and faithful than you seem 
to fear; but you — with these doubts of him — you ?” 

“Ah ! you think that I ought to be too proud to take 
a husband on those terms. Well, I am proud — proud 
enough to feel it, God knows! — but not proud enough, 
perhaps, to throw away my only chance of passing 
through the magic doors of that world of 3 ’ours, Mr. 
Temple — that world where girls have had careful fathers 
to stand by them and protect them, and good mothers 
who have trained, and taught, and watched over them 
all their lives, so that they have had no chance of learning 
— things that I have learnt. How cruel the good people 
inside those doors are to those who stand outside I And 
how glad the}’^ are to shut them to in their faces if they 
presume to try and push themselves through I Oh ! it 
is not a kind world at all, that world to which you be- 
long — only, it is better, perhaps, than ours, because if jmu 
are once inside you don’t get condemned without being 
tried — ‘ hung without beneft of clergy,’ as they saj^.” 

“ But you care for Cecil ? surely you care for him ?” 
he persisted with a feeling of blank dismay. 

“ 1 am very fond of Cecil,” she answered simply, but 
without any rapture as all. “ If I were not, I should 
not have said I would marry him, I suppose. But I am 
not at all fond of Mrs. Boscoe, or of Mrs. Torrens — 
neither are they fond of me,” she added, with a hard little 
laugh. “ Mr. Temple, I cannot think why I am saying all 
this to you — jmu don’t think very badljr of me, do you ?’ 

She looked up anxiously into Ids face, that was very 
grave and overcast; unconsciously she seemed to draw 
a little nearer to him. and unconsciously, too, he tight- 
ened the pressure of his arm a little upon hers. 

“ Think badl}^ of you? Oh no ; how could I do that? 


HOW THE ^^ROMANCH^ WAS CONTINUED. 139 


My dear little girl, if you only knew how sorry I am for 
you ! I would do anything in the world to help you — 
you and Cecil ; and some day I am sure all these troubles 
and uncertainties will pass away, and life will be brighter 
when you begin it afresh as his wife. I understand well 
that in many ways things must be very difficult to you 
just now. What you are pleased to call ‘ my world’ is 
a somewhat conventional place, and its inhabitants do 
not understand deviations from the beaten tracks ; but, 
although I myself am something of an outlaw at heart, 
as I told you, I think that, for a women at least, the 
beaten tracks are safer.” 

ISTell sighed. “Ah ! and our tracks at Marshlands are 
anything but ‘ beaten’ ! — as you would say if you were 
to see us Forresters at home. What Cecil must have 
suffered passes m}’’ comprehension now that I have be- 
held him at the other extremity of the Pole. There is 
Marshlands in front of us, Mr. Temple,” she added, point- 
ing to where a long, low house, with lights in some of its 
lower windows, loomed darkly out of the gloom in front 
of them. 

During the last two miles the country had become less 
bleak and bare ; a few low-lying woods broke the monot- 
ony of the plain, and they had crossed the river Laze, 
winding through the meadows in serpentine coils that 
gleamed like silver under the moonlight. 

“ You will come in, will you not, Mr. Temple ?” said 
Nell, as they neared the dilapidated gates and the empty 
and deserted lodge. “ We are a queer rough lot, but my 
father would like to thank you, I know, for bringing me 
home.” 

“ No, thank you, Miss Forrester. I must hurry on to 
Fenchester, I think; I ought to send a telegram from 
there to my friends at Finely. I will wish you good- 
bye at your own gates.” 

Somehow there fell a sudden chill upon them both — 
the word “good-bye” struck drearily upon their ears. 

They reached the gates and he stood still. Nell sud- 
denly put out both her hands to him. 

“ You — you will not go away without seeing me 
again? — ^you will come over on Sunday?” she said with 
an odd little break in her voice. 


140 


A BAD LOT. 


He took the hands she reached out to him and held 
them fast and looked fixedly into her face. Once more 
it had grown pale with some inward intensity which he 
did not understand, or which, perhaps, he did not dare to 
analyze — for there was the same look in her eyes as 
when she had tried to stop his going back to the train. 

“ Will Cecil be down for Sunday?” he asked hesi- 
tatingly. 

“ No — he is not coming this week.” 

‘‘ Then ” 

“ Oh ! why need that make any difference ?” she cried 
impatiently. “ Pray come. Is it not natural that you 
should ? You are his greatest friend.” 

“ It is for that reason,” he said, in so low a whisper 
that she hardly caught the words. “ Do you think I 
ought to come, Nell?” — her name slipped out almost 
without his knowledge — “ do you wish it so much ?” he 
added a little lamely, seeking man-like to shift the re- 
sponsibility off his own shoulders on to hers. “ If you 
wish it very much, then I will,” he added, with that in- 
born weakness which was wont to assail him just when 
he ought to have been strong. 

“Yes — come,” she answered in a whisper, that had 
something in its gentle softness that was almost a 
caress. 

And perhaps at that moment, as each turned from the 
other silently and in the darkness, there was no longer 
any sort of delusion in either of their hearts as to the 
meaning of it. 


CHAPTEE XY. 

MRS. HARTWOOD AGAIN. 

In the dining-room of a shabby house in Tipper War- 
brook Place, Bloomsbury, a widow lady in spectacles sat 
stooping over a table that was drawn closely into the 
old-fashioned bow window. The light of the November 
morning was pale and uncertain, and the lady’s occujDa- 


MRS. HARTWOOD AGAIN. 


141 


tion was elaborately fine, and exceedingly trying to the 
eyes. She was painting fiowers and figures on a curved 
piece of black satin that was destined to be mounted as 
a fan. 

The design, which to the fashionable West End firm 
who gave her regular employment, she passed off as her 
own, was in reality purchased by her for a very few 
pence from a consumptive lad who lay dying on his bed 
in a miserable attic at the top of the house ; and who for 
two years past had supplied her regularly with the pat- 
terns from which she copied her work. 

She was wondering now, as she worked her brush pa- 
tiently and laboriously, what she should do when Allan 
Salter died, as he must do, the doctor said, before many 
months were over. 

It was owing to the extreme grace and originality of 
the designs, even more than to the fineness of the execu- 
tion, that Messrs. Langworthy and Groves had kept 
Mrs. Hartwood in regular and well-paid employment for 
BO long. She was in the habit of taking Allan Salter’s 
pictures to the shop every week in order to submit them 
to the foreman — an educated man of very artistic tastes, 
who imagined that he had discovered a genius in the fan 
painter. Once when Allan had been too ill to paint them 
for her, Mrs. Hartwood had been reduced to taking some 
old designs of her own : an Italian landscape, surrounded 
with woolly roses, which she had found very popular 
with the young ladies to whom at divers times she had 
given private lessons ; also a certain shepherdess, with 
sheep in the background, a relic of her own pre-marital 
days. But these lovely creations had been rejected with 
scorn. 

“Hot np to your usual form at all this week,” had 
said the artistic gentleman who sat in judgment upon 
her work, closing up the portfolio and returning it to 
her promptly. “ You must keep better up to the mark 
than this ; these are very wishy-washy and old-fashioned 
— not at all what we require. Please bring me some- 
thing more striking and original next week ; these things 
are no use to us al all. You can do much better than 
that if you try.” 

And until Allan Salter was well enough to work again, 


142 


A BAD LOT. 


Mrs. Hartwood had not been able to obtain any further 
oi'ders from that eminent firm of fan-makers. 

She could not think what she should do when the con- 
sumptive boy should be dead. She paid him so little — 
only a shilling for three of his pictures. Even if she 
were to find any one else who could draw and invent as 
well, who was there who would not understand the 
value of such work better than to do them for the 
money? 

The design she was at work upon now, represented a 
battle between demons and skeletons — the demons were 
scarlet and the skeletons were white and weirdly gro- 
tesque. Mrs. Hartwood disapproved of the subject ex- 
tremel}^ she considered it profane and irreligious ; but 
Allan told her that it was a dream he had had, and the 
artistic foreman had considered it very striking and 
spirited and especially suitable to the season of Christmas, 
Avhich was now approaching — a remark which filled the 
clergyman’s widow with secret horror. But necessity 
knows no prejudices, and, in spite of her objections to 
the subject, Mrs. Hartwood was filling in her prancing 
devils and grinning skeletons in body colour with much 
accuracy and precision of touch. 

“ If my poor dear John could see me sitting here 
painting these dreadful creatures he would turn in his 
grave with horror !” she thought, as she laid down her 
brush and took off her spectacles for one moment to rest 
her tired eyes. 

“ And what am I to do when I can’t get the designs 
any more ? Oh, what hard work it is for a poor lady to 
make her living! A whole fortnight of toil to earn five 
or six pounds! And what a little way it goes when I 
have got it ! I wish I could see my way to make money 
more quickly and easily. My back aches and my eyes 
ache — and how sick and tired I am of painting from 
morning till night I” At this moment a brougham drew 
up at the door, and a well-dressed young lady got out 
of it and ran nimbly up the steps of the house. 

“ Miss Yincent 1 I wonder what she wants. I have 
not seen her for a long time ; perhaps she has come to 
ask me to give her some more lessons ; they paid mo 
well, those lessons, two a week at a guinea an hour. Or 


MRS. HARTWOOD AGAIN. 


143 


perhaps she wants to buy some more of Allan Salter’s 
old designs. 1 let her have the last much too cheap ; 
these rich people are so mean, they always try to beat 
down those who are poor and to get bargains out of 
them. Ah, my dear Miss Vincent, this is indeed a 
pleasure !” as the dirty-faced maid-of-all-work admitted 
the visitor into the dingy room. “ What a long while it 
is since I have seen you. How is your dear mamma ? 
How kind of you to pay me a visit.” 

“ I was driving by and I thought I must run in and see 
you for a moment, dear Mrs. Hartwood. I see you are 
as busy as ever. Oh ! what a queer funny picture you 
are painting now ; bow wonderfully clever you are to 
draw these things. And this one — how graceful it is,” 
taking up another design that lay upon the table, Gold- 
fish chasing Water Babies;” “it really is charming. 
Hear Mrs. Hartwood, what talent you have ; you must 
be making your fortune ” 

“ Alas, no, dear Miss Vincent ; I work very hard and 
I make very little. Talent is of very little use nowa- 
days. All markets are so overstocked, and the pushing 
ones take the bread out of the mouths of those who are 
more retiring and humble. But have you been painting 
lately, my dear, or have you come to ask me to give 
you some more lessons ?” 

“ I don’t think I can afford any more lessons just at 
present ; but, oh, dear Mrs. Hartwood, I would so love 
to buy one or two of your beautiful designs when you 
have done with them ; the last was so much admired. 
I copied it three or four times on different colours and 
every one admired it. May I buy this one of the dear 
little fishes and water sprites ? I think it so pretty.” 

“ I am afraid this one would be more money,” de- 
murred Mrs. Hartwood. “ I am obliged to charge more 
for those new ones, they have given me a great deal of 
thought and time ; you would not perhaps care to pay 
so much for them. I am obliged to ask fifteen shillings 
for each of these designs ; it sounds a great deal, I know ; 
but if you knew what they had cost me !” 

They had cost her exactly fourpence each. That was 
all she had given to the poor dying boy upstairs, who 
had been ordered beef tea and wine and jelly by tho 


144 


A BAD LOT. 


doctor, but who often had no money to buy them with, 
for his sister’s small earnings in a seamstress’ under- 
ground work-room was all that both had to depend upon 
to pay for rent and food and firing. Often and often 
the poor fellow lay in the cold of his bare and fireless 
garret coughing his soul out and wasting away for want 
of the nourishing food and the medicines which the 
doctor had recommended, whilst in his ignorance he was 
thankful enough to take the few pence which Mrs. Hart- 
wood paid him for his clever little sketches, which she 
gave him plainly to understand she only bought of him 
out of i^ure kindness and charity. 

“ It does not do to pauperise the poor,” Mrs. Hart- 
wood used to say to herself as she came downstairs with 
her bargains in her hand, if ever a qualm of conscience 
crossed her mind about young Salter’s designs; “and 
after all, a shilling to him is as much as a guinea would 
be to me. Besides, who would buy them if I did not?” 

But she pocketed the fifteen shillings Ida Yincent paid 
her for the poor boy’s little picture quite complacently 
and contentedly. “ I will bu}' Allan a bunch of grapes 
out of this money,” she said to herself, presumably to 
tranquillize the remnants of her conscience ; “ I saw 
some yesterday at the green-grocer’s round the corner 
at one-and-ninepence a pound. I suppose they must be 
Hamburg grapes as they were so cheap, but they looked 
quite as nice as English hothouse, and poor dear Allan 
Salter will never know the difference. Half a pound will 
be quite as many as he can eat, and will please him im- 
mensely, no doubt.” 

Ida Yincent paid for the design and Mrs. Hartwood 
promised to send it her by post as soon as she had done 
with it herself. 

“ Ah, my dear,” she remarked, as she snapped up the 
spring of her purse upon the fifteen shillings, with a 
deep sigh, “ you rich women, lapped in luxury, have no 
conception what hard and up-hill work it is for a poor 
lady who has seen better days to support herself in this 
great rich extravagant city !” 

Ida Yincent was standing before the mantelpiece; 
above it hung a water-colour picture of indifferent merit. 
It represented Marshlands Church and Yicarage on a 


MRS, HART WOOD AGAIN. 145 

very idealized scale, with Fenchester Cathedral spires in 
the distance. 

“Dear Mrs. Hartwood,” said Ida, gazing intently 
upon this work of art, “ I have so often longed to ask 
you about those better days I have heard you mention. 
Your poor husband was a clergyman, I know — was it 
there that those happy years you so often allude to were 
spent ? A church, a vicarage house — this must be surely 
a picture of your old home, Mrs. Hartwood ?” 

“ Yes, that is indeed the place. Miss Vincent, where 
those blessed years of my life with my lost beloved were 
spent ! Alas, 1 was perhaps too much wrapped up in 
earthly happiness in those days, and things of this world, 
as I need not tell you, my dear, are not meant to fill our 
hearts too much — it is through sorrow that we must be 
purified,” added the good lady piously. 

“ It is a charming spot,” continued Ida, who was still 
looking up with rapt admiration at the spinach greens 
of the water-colour sketch over her head ; “ did you not 
tell me once that your old home was in Fenshire ?” 

“ Yes, it was in Fenshire ; Marshlands was the name 
of the village.” 

Miss Vincent was silent for a moment, and a wave of 
dull red fiushed across her pale face; her heart began 
to beat with suppressed excitement. 

“ I was sure of it !” she thought ; “ it must be the 
same place — there cannot be two villages of the name of 
Marshlands in Fenshire.” Then aloud she said quietly, 
“ What a curious coincidence, and how small the world 
is! Do you know anything, I wonder, about a Miss 
Forrester who lives in that part of the world ?” 

Mrs. Hartwood gave a quick upward look and then 
bent down again over her painting ; Ida Vincent was 
cunning, but she was not at all clever — Mrs. Hartwood 
was cunning and clever too. 

“ What does she want to know ? why does she want 
to know anything ? and how much will she pay for the 
information?” were the questions that rushed through 
the elder woman’s mind as she carefully sketched in a 
scarlet demon balancing himself on his three-pronged 
spear. 

“Forrester?” she repeated thoughtfully: “there were 
Q, k 13 


146 


A BAD LOT. 


several Miss Forresters, I remember. Yes, 1 knew them 
all — they lived in my husband’s parish.” 

Miss Vincent came and sat down beside her and took 
her hand, so that Mrs. Hartwood was perforce obliged 
to stop jDainting. 

“ Dear Mrs. Hartwood then I am sure you will be 
able to relieve the great anxiety my greatest friends are 
enduring at present. You have heard me speak of my 
kind friend Mrs. Eoscoe, who lives close to us?” 

“ Oh yes, of course, and of her son, the handsome 
young barrister. I remember perfectly ; you used to 
tell me all about him when I first gave you lessons three 
years ago. You told me how clever he was and how 
attentive to yourself, and you showed me his photograph, 
my dear Miss Vincent, and you must really forgive me 
when I tell you that I built up quite a little romance in 
my mind about my kind young friend and the good- 
looking barrister she talked about so much.” 

“ You must forget all that, Mrs. Hartwood, for there 
is nothing in it at all,” said Ida colouring ; “ Cecil Eoscoe 
is only dear to me as a brother — and it is because 1 am 
so fond of him, and of his mother, that 1 feel so anxious 
about his happiness just now. He is engaged to one of 
those Miss Forresters of Marshlands, and 1 want you to 
reassure me, dear Mrs. Hartwood, you who must know 
so well all about the family, for poor Mrs. Eoscoe and 
Mrs. Torrens are sutfcring so much from the dreadful 
things they have heard about this girl and her family — 
they feel so uncomfortable about the engagement, and 
they would be so thankful if any one who like yourself 
has known them all intimately would tell them how 
false these reports are ; they would be so glad if you 
could speak a good word about this girl whom they know 
so little of.” 

Mrs. Hartwood withdrew her hand gently from the 
grasp of her former pupil. 

“ Which Miss Forrester is it?” she inquired, as she re- 
sumed her work. 

“It is the youngest, Eleanor, or Nell, as they call her. 
She is very beautiful — but oh, dear Mrs. Hartwood, do 
tell me that she is good as well as beautiful ; that she is 
worthy to be our dear Cecil’s wife? that is what those 
who care about him long to know.” 


MRS. HARTWOOD AGAIN. 


147 


Mrs. Hartwood’s face was bent over the painted satin, 
she tilled in the outline of a skeleton in silence. All 
these years she had waited, knowing that she had some- 
thing to tell which other people did not know and which 
some day it might be of advantage to her to disclose, 
and in all these years Mrs. Hart wood, it is needless to 
say, had not grown more charitable or more lenient in 
her judgments of others, whilst the hard work of a daily 
struggle for bread had brought out yet another unlovely 
trait in her character. 

There had arisen in her at this time a greed for money 
which had been unknown to her in her more prosperous 
days. It is a quality which advancing years is apt to 
foster in all of us. Other passions fail and fade with 
years, but that strong devouring longing for money 
often does but grow and strengthen and intensify, as wo 
ourselves grow older. And it is not only in the rich 
that this thirst for gold is to be seen, poverty develops 
it just as well as wealth ; in fact, there is something 
about a never ending and sordid struggle fur a living 
which tends most especially to cultivate and to promote 
its increase. 

Yet, Mrs. Hartwood had in some ways a high sense 
of right and wrong, and was by no means an entirely 
bad woman. Although, for instance, she took Allan 
Salter’s brain work and turned it to her own advantage, 
nobody could have said that she was not kind to him. 
She often went upstairs and sat with him in the after- 
noon when the light had grown too bad to see to paint, 
and she would read to him the psalms or the lessons for 
the day, and would talk to him by the hour about the 
beauty and duty of patience and resignation to his 
trials, and she often took him little things, flowers or 
fruit, when they did not cost her too much, trifles which 
filled the simple boy’s heart with gratitude and affection 
towards her. 

Hor, to do her justice, would Mrs. Hartwood have 
told a lie or borne false witness against any one on 
earth. She was perfectly genuine when she made reply 
in answer to Ida Vincent’s question: 

“ My dear Miss Vincent, I cannot tell you anything 
that is not true, even to allay your friends’ uneasiness, 


148 


A BAD LOT. 


or to lull you into false security about Mr. Eoscoe’s en- 
gagement. You must not expect me to cry ‘ peace, when 
there is no peace.’ I hope I know how to do my duty 
always, and to bear witness to the truth.” 

And, to do her duty, meant to Mrs. Hartwood in this 
instance to blacken Kell Forrester’s character, and to 
prevent her from rising out of the mire where she be- 
lieved her to be lying. Mrs. Hartwood had always, 
ever since meeting her with Colonel Harley in London, 
believed Hell to be thoroughly bad, and if the time had 
now come for her to disclose those terrible things that 
had come to her knowledge on that occasion, well. Cod 
forbid that she should shrink from that which she hon- 
estly conceived to be her duty. Only, she was poor and 
she wmnted money badly, and so she was not going to 
say what she knew unless it was made worth her while. 
Also, she was. clever enough to guess that Ida Yin cent 
did not want her to prophesy smooth things about the 
girl who had supplanted her in Cecil Eoscoe’s affections. 
She divined that Ida, remembering that she had lived in 
the same parish as the Forresters, had come here to-day 
on purpose to find out something about Hell which 
should, if possible, put a stop to the marriage. 

“ She is in love with the man, and she would like to 
part him from Hell Forrester,” she thought. “ It is 
natural enough, and in the interests of morality it would 
be certainly very wrong to let the poor young man walk 
into such a marriage in ignorance of the true nature of 
that girl.” 

“ My dear,” she said aloud, “ I am not an ill-natured 
woman, and I have no desire to mix myself up wdth other 
people’s affairs ; at the same time there are certain things 
that came to my knowledge some time ago, which opened 
my eyes at once and for ever to the true character of 
the young lady to whom your friend is unfortunately 
engaged.” 

“Yes, yes?” and Ida became a little breathless with 
her excitement, “ but they believe, you know, that this 
girl is better than her sisters.” 

“She is no better,” replied Mrs. Hartwood severely. 
“I am sadly afraid that she is in fact wmrse than her 
sisters, and they are all bad — all those Forresters ; but, 


A REVELATION. 


140 


my dear Miss Vincent, it would be quite impossible for me 
to speak of such things to you. A girl, so well brought up 
as you have been, should be in absolute ignorance of the 
wicked things that go on, alas, too often in the world. 
It is only to an older woman, to a married woman, that 
1 could possibly open my lips concerning certain dread- 
ful facts that were once brought under my very eyes.” 

“ You will at least then come with me, dear Mrs. 
Hartwood, and see my friend’s mother ? or his aunt ?” 

“ I cannot promise — the fact is, I cannot afford the 
time; time is money to me, and every moment that I 
waste means so many shillings out of my pocket.” 

“ There shall be no loss to you, dear Mrs. Hartwood,” 
cried Ida eagerly. “ I will see myself that you are not 
out of pocket, tlfiat you are amply repaid. I am rich, 
you know. I will pay you anything — anything you 
like to name, if you will only save my poor friend from 
this designing girl.” 

And after that Mrs. Hartwood and Miss Vincent began 
to understand one another thoroughly and entirely. 


CHAPTEE XVI. 

A REVELATION. 

• 

The telegraph boy was coming up the drive at Marsh- 
lands. Nell saw him from her bedroom window. There 
was only one boy who carried telegrams from the post- 
office in the village, and he was mainly engaged in bring- 
ing them backwards and forwards to Marshlands House, 
Tom Beales was employed in the choir as well as in the 
telegraph office, which should have vouched for the re- 
spectability and responsibility of his character; but he 
was an evil-minded boy whose soul was set upon mis- 
chief, and was ever disposed to consider pleasure before 
duty, after the manner of unregenerate boyhood. 

lie never hurried himself Nations might fall, or, 
what was nearer the mark, horses might win or lose, 

13 * 


150 


A BAD LOT. 


and fortunes might change hands, before Tom Beales 
would consent to hasten his lagging footsteps. He 
always dawdled, and if possible he always chucked 
stones. 

He was at his usual games now. The drive from the 
tumble-down lodge at the gates up to the door of the 
house ran no longer through a green and sylvan park 
in these latter days. On either side there were unlovely 
turnips planted in close set rows, belonging to Mr. 
Wilkes, the worthy farmer who rented the land up to 
the very garden fence. Amongst these turnips — swedes 
they were, to give them their rightful name ; unsavoury 
vegetables, whence strong and pungent odours were 
wont to be wafted unpleasantly to the noses of the Miss 
Forresters when the wind set in that direction — a care- 
ful observer such as Mr. Tom Beales was able to descry 
sundry insignificant living things. There were sparrows 
by the score, there was an occasional field mouse, and 
there was also now and again a barn-door chick that, 
moved by a spirit of inquiry, had strayed beyond the 
limits of its home amongst the back yards of the house, 
and at rare intervals there might also be seen a cat. At 
each and all of these creatures Mr. Beales considered 
that it behoved him to stand and shie the frequent 
pebble. 

Sometimes in the excitement of the chase he left the 
road and plunged into the “roots,” in pursuit of his 
prey ; sometimes he only stalked the game cautiously, 
backwards or forwards as the case might be, along thd 
narrow grass margin of the road. 

It will be understood, therefore, that telegrams due at 
Marshlands House were not, under these circumstances, 
delivered with any unseemly haste or punctuality. 

“ There is your telegram, Dottie, coming up the road,” 
said Nell, looking into the study when she got down- 
stairs. “ Tom Beales is, as usual, taking his time over it.” 

“ The little beast !” cried Dottie, springing up angrily 
from her book, which, of course, was “ Buff’s Guide to 
the Turf’ — a volume that was scarcely ever out of her 
hands. “And here am I, in a perfect fever! Poppet 
promised to send me a wire the moment the race was 
over, and that telegram, my sweet children, will make a 


A REVELATION. 


151 


woman or a mouse of your sister ; if Thalassa pulls this 
race otf I stand to win ten pounds ; if not, I am undone ! 
Where is that fiendish boy? 1 will be the death of him 
some day.” 

“ He is at the present moment pursuing one of our 
Cochin China cocks in and out of the mangel- wurzels,” 
observed Millie, who happened to be kneeling in front 
of the window teaching the Irish terrier to balance 
biscuits on his nose. 

Dottie fled like a whirlwind out of the room. 

“I’ll teach him to chase Cochin China cocks,” she 
cried savagely, “ when I am waiting for my telegrams I” 

For that a telegram could ever come for anybody else 
in the house, save for Dottie, did not enter remotely into 
any one’s calculations. Dottie kept the Marshlands 
telegraphic wire going — it is doubtful whether it would 
have had any existence at all but for her, or if in the 
whole parish there were half-a-dozen telegrams sent or 
received in the course of the year by anybody but Miss 
Dorothea Forrester. Nobody at Marshlands took much 
interest in the thrilling events of the racing world save 
herself, although, to do Dottie justice, whenever she did 
happen to win her money, the whole household fared 
for a space more sumptuously, and was treated to certain 
unaccustomed luxuries that were unknown to it under 
ordinary circumstances. 

Meanwhile, Millie continued her canine instructions. 
Snap sat on his hind legs and looked many piteous and 
unutterable things at her out of his soft, pathetic brown 
eyes, and the little pink tip of his quivering tongue 
fluttered up frequently towards the corner of his nose, 
in the direction of the broken biscuit. 

“ Ah I you would, would you, bad dog ! quiet, steady ; 
don’t you dare to touch it. Trust, Trust, if you take it 
before I tell you, you will catch it, sirl” and crack went 
the dog-whip, within six inches of his head. 

“ I can’t think how you can torment that poor dog 
so, Millie,” cried Nell impatiently. “ Of what use is 
that senseless trick ? Dogs are so delightful in them- 
selves; their own natural ways are so charming; why 
not leave them as they are? If one were to devote 
one’s whole life to the study, I doubt if one would be 


152 


A BAD LOT. 


able to entirely fathom the depths of one single dog’s 
character. To teach tricks to a dog is to degrade his 
natural qualities ; besides, you make him miserable. 
Only look at the reproach in Snap’s eyes ] it is heart- 
rending!” 

“ I quite agree with you, Nell ; but that wretch 
Ducky jeered at me so horribly the other day because 
none of my dogs can do tricks ; he says they only know 
how to bark and bite, so I was determined to show 
him ” 

“What on earth is the meaning of this ?” here said 
Dottie’s voice at the door ; the open telegram was in 
her hands, and she was reading it over with a puzzled 
face. “ I can’t make head or tail of it : ‘ Cannot come 
Sunday; try to understand and forgive' W^ho cannot 
come Sunday ? Poppet never meant to come ; and ‘ for- 
give’ — what am I to forgive ? Is it my sovereign that he 
has forgotten to put on to Thalassa, after all ? If so, I 
shall certainly never forgive him, when he might have 
got me such a splendid price ! and as to understanding — 
Oh ! I don’t believe it can be from Poppet at all. Why, 
it comes from Fenchester, and Poppet is at Newmarket.” 

Nell, who had been crouching down between Snap 
and the window, rose slowly to her feet. She turned 
suddenly very white — a cold rigidity seemed to benumb 
her senses — she held out her hand towards her sister. 

“ I think the telegram is for me, Dottie.” 

“ For you, Nell ? Is it ?” turning to the envelope in 
her other hand ; “ it is addressed to ‘ Miss Forrester.’ I 
am sure I am very sorry if I opened it, but how was I 
to know? But are you quite certain it is for you? It 
seems quite incomprehensible ; that stupid girl at the 
post-office must have made some mistake.” 

“ I think I know what it means,” said Nell dully. 

She felt as though some one had given her a hard 
blow. There was a dumb, stupid apathy within her, but 
she did not feel any pain — not yet. 

“ Oh, if so, of course it is yours, Nell, and I apologize 
for opening it. But did you expect your young man on 
Sunday? I thought you said he wasn’t commg down 
this week? and why in the name of fortune does be 
wire from Fenchester? Good gracious, child! I hope 


A REVELATION. 153 

to goodness you and Cecil haven’t quarrelled ; that would 
be simply awful.” 

“It has nothing to do with Cecil,” answered Nell a little 
confusedly, and then, dreading more searching sisterly 
questions, she went quickly away out of the room, with 
the telegram which Dottie had given to her, in her hand. 

She went and stood by the open hall door ; winter and 
summer alike, everybody left the front door open at 
Marshlands. The day was moist and chill ; the sky was 
one wash of dull and uniform grey, utterlj^ unbroken 
and still; a faint mist shaded the distant lines of the 
landscape, so that they melted away into the sky. There 
were no boisterous winds nor storm-rent clouds to-day. 
Far away down the drive Tom Beales wms beating a 
leisurely retreat, chucking stones to the right and the 
left of him as he went. 

Nell stood quite still, looking out at the familiar scene 
with the message of disappointment crushed up in her 
hands. 

“ I am dreadfully disappointed.” She said the words 
aloud twice over, as though to emphasize them to her- 
self. “ He promised to come and see me, and now he 
will not. It is a great disappointment.” 

She dwelt upon the word conscientiously and earnestly. 
She was quite sure that she was disappointed. Yet, at 
the bottom of her heart there lay, not disappointment, 
but despair ! 

Presently she turned away and went slowly upstairs 
to her own room. For some minutes she stood quite 
still in the centre of it. A large photograph of Cecil in 
a red plush frame stood upon the table; there was 
another of him in his wig and gown on the mantelpiece 
behind her. She turned slowly round and looked at them 
both, first at one and then at the other. 

She had been so pleased with them when Cecil had 
given them to her. Was it a fortnight or three weeks 
ago? She could not remember. It seemed only yester- 
day that he had brought them down, and had kissed 
her as he gave them to her, and she had been quite 
happy and contented then, and had felt glad that she 
was going to be his wife. It was only the other day — 
and now — now! 


154 


A BAD LOT. 


Her eyes dropped slowly down to the telegram in her 
hand — a telegram can never be a very romantic missive, 
the bald unsympathetic wording leaves no room for the 
details of joy or sorrow ; yet if it brings us bad news it 
is perhaps a more deadly medium of grief than the 
longest letter that can bo penned, whilst if it brings us 
joy we have no need of more. Pages of explanatory 
sentences could not have made Julian Temple’s meaning 
more distinct to Nell than tliose eight words which 
brought to her so strange a mingling of rapture and 
despair, so that each one of them burnt itself in letters 
of fire into her heart. 

“ He will not come !” had been her first blank thought 
of misery; “it was my only chance, my one solitary 
hope of seeing him again, and now it has withered and 
perished, and I have no hope any more.” That had been 
all that had come home to her at first. Now she read 
the concluding words of the message again, “ try to under- 
stand and forgive."' A slow light woke in her eyes ; her 
Avhite cheeks flamed into crimson ; her curved lips parted 
into a smile of triumph and joy, whilst quick little 
breaths broke swiftly and tumultuously out of the riotous 
and sudden excitement at her heart. 

“ My God ! he loves me !” she said to herself in a 
whisper; “he loves me!” and then she threw herself 
down upon her bed and buried her face amongst the 
pillows. 

For a long time there was no other thought. 

“ He loves me I” she murmured at intervals to herself; 
“Julian Temple loves me! It is because of his honour 
that he dare not come. Yes, Julian, yes, I understand.” 

The discover}^ she had made filled her whole soul ; she 
wanted nothing more. Life was full, joy was completed ; 
there was nothing left on earth or under heaven for her 
to desire or long for ; he was her other self, that “ twin* 
soul” of which the poets have written, who dwells some- 
where in the wide-reaching spaces of the vast unfathom- 
able universe for each of us, without whom the existence 
of every living creature must for ever remain incomplete 
and void, and from whom so many of us — such tens of 
thousands — so far the larger portion of sad and suffering 
human beings — are destined to be for ever and for ever 


A REVELATION. 


155 


estranged. But to her, Nell Forrester, that companion- 
being had come ! She had met him face to face ; across 
the dull darkness of the world they had grasped each 
other’s hands; all unconsciously and unwittingly they 
had drawn near to one another; and that great and 
beautiful secret, which is not so much human love as 
human affinity, had been revealed to them both. 

For a long while this wonderful thought — entrancing, 
absorbing, and absolutely bewildering — was all that she 
was capable of realizing. 

She knew now that love had come to her at last — the 
love she had only dreamed of hitherto, dimly and darkly 
— that she had known to exist and yet had never found. 
The blind and selfish passion of a Yane Barley had but 
caricatured it. The cold conventionality of a Cecil 
Eoscoe was but its pallid reflection — the unreal shadow 
of the substance itself. But in Julian Temple all that 
she had desired and longed for most seemed to be united 
— strength and tenderness, passion and heart-worship, 
and that subtle union of thought and sympathy that 
forms the deepest and most lasting bond of all between 
two people who are mutually attracted to one another. 

And then, after all this rapture of thrilling delight, 
there came at last to poor Nell the inevitable reaction. 
For the “ soul” in us, in this sordid and work-a-day 
world, is so weak and feeble a portion of us, it is but 
now and again, at rare and trembling intervals, that it 
is able to spread its wide white wings and draw us up 
into the blue ethereal vault of heaven. Fain would we 
be rid of the fleshly burden that drags us down again 
to earth, and remain for ever in those empyrean heights 
above ; but, alas, it is not given to the sons of men to 
shake off the hard and practical conclusions of life for 
more than a few brief and transitory moments. Nell 
Forrester, after that swift and ecstatic flight into the 
regions of deathless joy, came down very rapidly again 
to the level of this lower world. She sat up at last on 
her little white bed, on which, in her first delirium, she 
had flung herself, and, whilst the tears of her rapture 
lay still wet upon her pillow, other tears of more bitter 
import gathered slowly and painfully in her aching eyes. 

For it was only a dream — a beautiful and impossible 


156 


A BAD LOT. 


dream : a glimpse of a heaven she might never enter, a 
glimmer of light through a half-opened doorway that 
was to be close shut again for ever. 

What Julian Temple had meant her to understand was 
as clear as daylight to her. He would come no more. 
That thing which to a woman is so vague and intangible, 
and to a man is so real and so tremendous in its im- 
passable strength, that barrier which men call “ honour,” 
and women — God forgive them — often call foolishness, 
stood between them, barring for ever the way that might 
have led to happiness and to joy. 

It was all over. Whatever else life might contain for 
her, Julian Temple must be for ever left out of it. 

In time she would grow old ; she would get accustomed 
to her fate; those dream images that had seemed so 
sacred and so dear would all be left wrecked and stranded 
upon the golden shores of hope and of youth. Hope 
would die; youth become a dwindling phantom along 
the dreary vista of the years ; and love — the love that 
might have filled her life with gladness — ^would fade into 
a pale faint vision ; the memory of a “ might have been ;” 
a lost and missed possibility that had never really been 
within her grasp. 

In all human experience there is none so sad and so 
bitter as this : to know what would have made our life 
Avorth living ; to see and understand the one thing that 
would have been for our soul’s best peace ; and yet, by 
an irony of fate, to miss it altogether and for evermore. 


CHAPTEE XYII. 

Cecil’s bank notes. 

Gordon Forrester had been having a very good time 
of it ever since his youngest daughter had been engaged 
to be married. He was a man who up to now had been 
desperately unlucky all his life. 

Some people do not believe in “ luck,” and are wont to 
declare that misfortunes only assail those who lay them- 


CECIL'S BANK NOTES. 


157 


selves out to court them ; that troubles arise mainly 
from mistakes and mismanagements, and that if a man 
complains of ill-luck he has, in the long run, only him- 
self to thank for it. 

It is certainly the case that when we commit ourselves 
to a line of action that we are well aware to be unwise 
and imprudent, we perhaps deserve but little pity when 
the inevitable consequences of that action overtake us. 

Yet there are certain people who, throughout their 
lives, appear always fated to do the wrong thing, and 
whom a malignant retribution seems to follow up with 
a relentless severity, that others, no less faulty than 
themselves, are more fortunate in escaping. 

No doubt Grordon Forrester had had only himself to 
thank for his calamitous marriage and its disastrous 
ending. Yet he scarcely ever looked at it in that light. 
He was not nearly so shocked and horrified as his neigh- 
bours were at the event which had brought shame upon 
his name and reproach upon his innocent children. He 
had a casual way of regarding things — it was very bad 
luck certainly, and fell hard upon him — but in his own 
mind his wife was still “ poor Geraldine” to him. He 
kept her photograph upon h^s bedroom mantelpiece, and 
often wondered what had become of her ; he had loved 
and admired her in his own way, and he had never been 
hard on her for her sin. His brother had been indignant 
with him because he had flatly refused to institute 
divorce proceedings against her, and had ended by quar- 
relling with him entirely and solely on that account. 

“Poor girl; why should I persecute her?” had been 
the remark of the injured husband, with a careless shrug 
of his shoulders. “ And as to the law courts, I’d as soon 
keep out of them. One is certain to drop one’s money 
at that game, and I’d rather spend mine more amusingly 
than in filling the lawyers’ pockets.” 

“ But think: of your honour, Gordon ! Of the family 
name dragged in the mud by that disgraceful creature!” 
had urged Sir Kobert in that long-gone-by interview. 

“ Tut, tut, my dear Bob ! The poor girl was terribly 
bored at home ; one must make some excuses for her ; 
she wasn’t a lady, you see, to begin with, and though 

she tried her best to become one, these d d women 

14 


158 


A BAD LOT. 


about here wouldn’t help her a bit. Not one of them 
would call on her or be kind to her, and yet she had as 
good a heart as anybody that ever lived. And perhaps 
it was, in a measure, my fault; I left her a great deal 
alone ; I was always out myself. Anyhow, I’m not going 
to be hard on her now. She don’t want to get married 
to this chap, I should think ; all she wants is to amuse 
herself. I shall let her alone. ‘ Live and let live’ is my 
motto.” 

Well, no doubt it was not only a very reprehensible 
decision, but also a very mistaken one ; for, as the years 
went on so, too, did the scandal live, and people were 
not slow to remember the mother who still bore the 
name of Forrester, and who had never been repudiated 
by her too indulgent and careless husband, d'hey said 
to one another that by his own inaction Gordon For- 
rester had made it impossible for anybody to associate 
with his daughters or to do anything to lift them out of 
the mire of their mother’s disgrace. For she was still 
his wife; although no one had ever heard any more 
about her fate, it was manifestly still possible for her 
to return at any moment to her husband’s house. 

That was by no means the only mistake of Gordon 
Forrester’s life. If he had chosen he might have lived 
within the limits of his small income. It had been open 
to him at first to let Marshlands furnished, and to take 
his girls abroad and educate them well and cheaply in 
some French or Belgian city. In a prolonged absence 
of several years the past would have been to a great 
extent forgotten, and he could have economized, and 
could have been able to pay his way and to live honestly 
and creditably. But such an uprooting of all his habits 
of life did not commend itself to his indolent and ego- 
tistical nature. It was ever so much easier to stop on 
where he was, to run into debt and to borrow money 
when ho was hard up, to let the park and the fields to 
the neighbouring farmers, and to allow his daughters to 
grow up anyhow, uneducated and untrained, and so he 
allowed the opportunity to slip by. Lottie and Millie, 
indeed, had been sent to school for a few years, but 
English schools are expensive, and the experiment was 
not continued for long, and Nell had received no regular 


CECIVS BANK NOTES. 


159 


instruction at all to speak of. This, however, did not 
trouble their father in the least. They all of them 
muddled along somehow and anyhow at Marshlands, 
and no one, except Nell, had ever taken life in the least 
from a serious point of view. 

‘‘I don’t see the use of education for girls,” Gordon 
would say if any one called his attention to the fact of 
his daughters’ lack of learning. “ All a woman requires 
is marriage ; and there isn’t any science or any language 
that ever was taught in a school tiiat teaches them how 
to get husbands so well as their own wits do.” 

And it was, perhaps, the greatest trouble of his later 
days that his daughters, in spite of this theory, had none 
of them yet achieved the, to him, sole aim and object of 
a woman’s existence. 

So he really looked upon it as a very great piece of 
good fortune when Nell was engaged to be married. It 
was a good marriage, too ; a sound, respectable connec- 
tion of which even Gordon Forrester’s careless mind was 
forced to admit the material advantages. Nell Avould 
be placed in a good position; she would be fairly well 
off and have a house in London, and of course she would 
be able to help her sisters. It was quite on the cards 
that one of them being married, the others would, by 
her help, very soon follow suit. 

“ If only I can get them all three comfortably settled 
and off my hand.s, I should be able to live a decent life 
again,” he was thinking as he sat one evening with a 
pipe in his mouth by his library fire. “ I think I would 
shut the old place up and go and look up some of my 
old friends in London and Paris. In London, of course, 
I could stay with Nell or with one of the others” — his 
thoughts running rampantly on ahead — “it would bo 
cheap, and very much more cheerful than at the mother’s 
house, and I daresay they would be always glad to put 
me up. And then in Paris? Let me see, Madame de 
Sarcy must still be alive, I should say. I might go and 
find her out. By God ! what a fine woman that was ! 
and she used to be very fond of me at one time. Ah ! 
those were glorious days ! the days when I was young 
and free, and the women called me ‘ Handsome Gordie.’ ” 

And the prematurely aged and worn-out man, in his 


160 


A BAD LOT. 


old and shabby black velveteen suit, the only attempt 
at evening dress he ever made at home, sighed as he 
recalled his past triumphs and successes in those golden 
days of his youth before he had committed the greatest 
and most irretrievable mistake of his life. 

“ Poor Geraldine !” he said softly after a few moments. 
“ It was a pity perhaps that I married her, she’d have 
been just as happy as she was, and we neither of us 
hankered particularly after respectability, and yet, 1 
don’t see what else could very well have been done 
under the circumstances, when she lost her engagement 
at the Frivolity and there was nobody else but me. I 
have not been a good man, I suppose ; but I think I 
should have been a worse one if 1 hadn’t married her, 
poor girl!” and then he sighed again and wished that 
“ Poor Geraldine” could have seen her way to sticking 
to him. “ It would have been better for the girls,” ho 
thought, and that was all the reproach he ever cast 
at the wife for whom he had sacrificed his life, and who 
had rewarded him by betrayal and desertion. Then 
presently his thoughts returned to the daughter by 
whose means good fortune seemed to be coming back 
once more to him and his. Already in these last few 
weeks there had been a glimmer of many kinds of better 
things for him. There had been some small social 
triumphs to which he had long been a stranger, and 
which were soothing and gratifying to him. Only this 
morning, in Fenchester — it being market day, and his 
custom to go into the town for a little variety, just to 
moon about with his hands in his pockets and to ex- 
change a few words with the farmers and the shopmen — 
this very day a new thing happened to him. Lord Eed- 
stoke, the great man of the neighbourhood, had stopped 
him and congratulated him on his daughter’s engage- 
ment, whilst Lady Eedstoke, who had been wont to 
ignore him and look straight in front of her as she 
drove by, bowed to him quite graciously as she sat in 
her carriage in front of the circulating library in the 
market place. 

“ A good marriage, too, I hear, for your girl, Mr. For- 
rester,” Lord Eedstoke liad said condescendingly; “the 
youngest, is it ? Ah, well, 1 am very glad to hear one 


CECILS BANK NOTES. 


161 


of them is goin^ to be married. The Eoscoes are most 
respectable people — to be married at Easter, and to live 
in London, is she? Well, we shall not forget her; Lady 
Eedstoke will be sure to call upon the bride when she 
goes up to town for the season.” 

Gordon Forrester was not at all too proud to be pleased 
by the proffered patronage, although all these years he 
had affected to despise the people who had dropped and 
ignored him, declaring that he wanted none of them, 
and that he and his girls could get along very well by 
themselves ; yet deep down in his heart there had no 
doubt been many sore and angry heart-burnings, which 
this tardy acknowledgment served to soothe and smooth 
away. 

And Lord Eedstoke had not been the only one to hold 
out the hand of reconciliation, for where the lion leads 
the way the smaller animals are not slow to follow. 
Others who had heard and seen the meeting came up 
also and spoke to him and offered their congratulations, 
giving him to understand that this marriage of his girl 
was well regarded by his country neighbours and might 
open the door to better things for them all in the future. 

Then over and above all this there was yet another 
source of secret satisfaction in Gordon Forrester’s heart 
to-night ; his future son-in-law was an excellent young 
man in all ways, no doubt, but chiefly so to his father- 
in-law elect in that he was of a generous and confiding 
disposition. Presently Gordon took out a key from his 
pocket and opened a drawer in his writing-table, and as 
he opened it he smiled to himself. Greedily and furtively 
lie opened it, looking behind him as he did so towards 
the door, which was ajar, and through which there came 
the scent of cigarettes and the click of balls and the 
loud merry voices of Lottie and Millie and of the young 
fellows who had come over from the barracks to play 
billiards with them. The game to-night was pool, and 
the fun was fast and furious — Lottie’s shrill voice well 
above the rest shouting and screaming as usual : 

“Poppet, you are cheating. I swear you are. No, 
you can’t put back your ball and have that stroke over 
again ; you must lose a life. I tell you I saw you push 
the blue out from the cushion. Lucky, hold him back I 
I 14 * 


162 


A BAD LOT. 


don’t let him play! Millie, set Snap at him! Oh, Cap- 
tain Toulmin, you will really think us all cracked. Kell 
is the only sane one amongst us, and she is in love. Why 
does love make some people melancholy? Kell is just 
now perfectly funereal in her ways. Poppet, I love you 
desperately sometimes, but it doesn’t depress me in the 
very least. Perhaps that is because 1 also hate you at 
times so intensely ; the one passion counteracts the other. 
When you cheat or forget to back the winner for me, I 
simply detest you, and now I swear you shan’t have that 
stroke again. Millie, set the dogs at him, do!” 

Then followed a wild commotion — shouts of laughter, 
screams and scuffles ; the young ladies were apparently 
chasing the gentlemen round the billiard table. A gen- 
eral scrimmage ensued. The men crawled under the 
table or clambered over it ; the girls rushed round and 
round, and the dogs, joining delightedly in the fray, ca- 
reered about with frantic and deafening barks. In the 
confusion a little table upset with a crash, and a soda- 
water tumbler was shivered into atoms on the stone 
flagged floor ; after which the unfortunate Mr. Popham 
was dragged out by the heels from his hiding-place under 
a sofa, and was violently set upon and punished about 
the face by a batterade of footstools and cushions. 

Gordon was accustomed to it all. He rather liked to 
hear them. The girls always “ romped” when the sub- 
alterns were there in force ; and when they romped they 
generally kicked up an infernal shindy. There did not 
seem to him to be any harm in it at all — it was only play ; 
they kept the house alive with it. But Gordon knew 
very well from the peculiar stjde of pandemonium that 
w^as going on just now, that Kell was not with the rest. 
Kell somehow was so different to the others; ho won- 
dered why. She had always been a quiet little thing; 
she did not amuse and interest him half so much as her 
sisters did. She was not his favourite child at all, but 
just now she was of more importance to him than the 
others. He supposed there must be something in her 
after all; for with all her quietness she had managed to 
catch a husband before her sisters. Perhaps she was 
really cleverer than either of them. 

“ But, by Jove !” he thought, “ if 1 were a young fellow, 


CECIL'S BANK NOTES. 


163 


it’s Dottie I’d have gone for. A fine woman is Dottie, 
with a spirit of her own. Little Nell isn’t a patch on 
her.” 

But it was because he was sure that she was not there, 
and would not be likely to come in and catch him, that 
he ventured to open that secret drawer and to count over 
his treasure with hands that trembled a little with eager- 
ness. Five crisp new Bank of England ten pound notes. 
It was years since Gordon Forrester had fingered so 
much money. There was a little gloating light in his 
faded eyes, and a. greedy smile that flickered over his 
wrinkled face. When one is very hard up, and has de- 
pended for a long while upon chance loans and windfalls, 
a good fat comfortable sum like fifty pounds is apt to 
make a man’s heart beat and his mouth water. Gordon 
Forrester had never looked at any woman in his life so 
tenderly and lovingly as he looked at those crisp and 
rustling bank notes. 

“ A good boy !” he murmured ; “ a good, generous boy I 
I never thought he would respond to my little appeal so 
liberally ; a tenner, perhaps — that is all I expected. But 
this — this is princely, quite munificent ! and the best of 
a loan from a son-in-law is that it’s exactly like a loan 
from a mother — one need never repay it. Cecil is certain 
to look upon it in that light ; good, generous fellow that 
he is. But he shall have my I.O.U. — Oh, yes — that is 
only right in case of my death. I will send him an 
I.O.U. to-morrow.” 

He was in the act of replacing the notes safely into the 
drawer when a foot-fall sounded across the oak floor be- 
hind him, and a light hand was laid upon his shoulder. 

He started guiltily, and shufiled the notes hastily back 
together, shutting up the drawer with a bang. Nell had 
come in through another door, and so quietly that it was 
not until she was standing behind him that he realized 
she was there. 

“ Oh, my dear, how you made me jump ! I declare 
you quite frightened me ! You came in like a ghost, my 
dear Nell ; positively like a ghost!” and Gordon laughed 
a little nervously, and busied himself assiduously amongst 
the loose papers on his writing table to cover his confu- 
sion ; but he knew very well that she must have seen, 


164 


A BAD LOT. 


“ Papa, where did you get all those bank notes ?” said 
the voice of the young Inquisitor behind him. 

“ Oh, only a little windfall, my lore — just a mere trifle 
— a small legacy that I have come into.” 

But, with an unerring instinct, Nell knew. She had 
not been Gordon Forrester’s child all these long years 
for nothing. 

“ Did Cecil give you that money ?” 

“ My dear Nell, do not insult your own father ! ‘ Give !’ 
One gentleman does not give money to another. A gen- 
tleman may, indeed, accept a loan.” 

“ And Cecil lent you this ?” 

“ He was kind enough to oblige me with it, certainly, 
under all proper conditions,” replied Mr. Forrester loftily. 
“ He will receive my acknowledgment and my I.O.U., 
which I intend to send to him by the flrst post to-mor- 
row. It is a very ordinary transaction, my dear child, I 
assure you. You need not distress your little heart in 
the least on behalf of your future husband.” 

“ But, papa, what is the good of your I.O.U. ?” 

“ My dear Nell, do you mean to impugn my honour?” 
cried her father in a shocked and horrified voice. 

“ But how can you ever pay Cecil back ?” persisted the 
girl remorselessly. “ I daresay you would if you could, 
but you know how poor we are. Where is the money — 
all that money — to come from ? There must be eighty 
pounds there at least.” 

“ Oh, no, no ! Now, my love, you are exaggerating ; 
say fifty.” 

“ Fifty ! and where are you to find fifty pounds ?” cried 
Nell, with real distress. “Papa, pray send the money 
back to him.” 

Mr. Forrester laughed softly. Nell’s words were mere 
childishness to him. 

“My dear little girl, you are talking great nonsense. 
Our dear Cecil is only too glad to be of use to me, and 
as to repayment, really, my dear Nell, it is a very poor 
compliment to your own charms that you pay yourself, 
if you can doubt that Cecil considers himself amply 
repaid already. I am giving him my daughter; how 
can filthy dross, a miserable fifty pounds, weigh in the 
balance against so priceless a treasure as yourself, my 


CECIL'S BANK NOTES. 


165 


child? Nevertheless, if only to satisfy you, as I have 
told you already, he shall have my I.O.U. All the usual 
formalities shall be complied with, although in this case, 
a case that may be said to lie between the hearts of a 
father and his children, such formalities are totally 
superfluous.” 

Nell said no more. She sat down wearily in an arm- 
chair by the hearth, and leant her tired head upon her 
hand and stared into the red embers of the faintly flick- 
ering fire. If for one wild moment she had dreamt of 
being true to her secret instincts, and of throwing up 
her engagement to Cecil because of that wonderful dis- 
covery in her own heart that she had so lately made, all 
such thoughts now vanished into thin air. That her 
father should be in Cecil Eoscoe’s debt seemed only one 
more link to strengthen the chain that bound her to him. 
A moment ago, when she had crept softly into her 
father’s study and had laid her fluttering hand on his 
shoulder, it had been in Nell’s mind to have said to him : 
“ I cannot marry Cecil Eoscoe ; I do not love him ; I love 
some one else, and I will not marry where I do not love.” 
But at the sight of those fluttering bank notes in her 
father’s trembling hands, the desperate words had died 
away upon her lips. Gordon Forrester never knew how 
near at that moment he had been to receiving a shock 
that would have cruelly upset all his new plans and hopes. 
Nell said nothing more, she only sat down behind him 
dully and dejectedly. “ Yes, Cecil has been very good to 
me and mine,” she thought miserably. “ He does not de- 
serve that I should treat him badly ; it would be base and 
shameful of me to throw him over now ; 1 must not, 
cannot do it. In his own queer, cold way I believe that 
he loves me, and it would make him very unhappy if I 
were to be false to him, and, besides, does not everything, 
even this money, bind me to him? What good should I 
do if I were to break with him ?” and she sighed wearily. 
For if in a weak moment Julian Temple had allowed her 
to perceive that he liked her too much to be merely her 
friend, yet Nell was scarcely vain enough to suppose that 
this new and wonderful attraction to herself could be 
sufficiently deep rooted to make him suggest, or even 
desire, that she should throw Cecil over for his sake. 


166 


A BAD LOT. 


On the contrary, that which his telegram had implied 
was totally the reverse. In so many words Julian Tem- 
ple had said to her : 

“ There is danger in this friendship of ours ; and into 
that danger 1 do not mean to run.” 

When a man says this to a woman, there is no other 
course open to her but to submit. She was wise enough, 
too, to understand that a man must be very desperately 
in love before he will go deliberately out of his way to 
overstep those strong and instinctive barriers which lie 
between his honour and a forbidden love. 

However lightly she might hold that same vague and 
unattractive virtue of “ honour,” she knew well that to a 
man of Julian Temple’s calibre it must be a very tangible 
and living reality, and that the discretion which is the 
better part of valour, and which urged him now to avoid 
and shun her altogether, was a sufficient evidence of the 
light in which he too probably regarded it. 

Even if she herself had the strength or the power to 
break off her engagement to Cecil, w^ould Julian Temple 
be at all likely to take advantage of it or to rush again 
into the situation on which he was so resolutely deter- 
mined now to turn his back ? She could not tell. She 
only knew that she felt sick at heart and very helpless ; 
that the little courage she might have summoned to her 
aid was flickering feebly in the socket, and that the sight 
of Cecil Hoscoe’s bank notes in her father’s hands seemed 
to put the flnal stroke to the hopelessness of a cause that 
was already as good as lost. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE EVIL REPORT. 

It has, I think, been said before that there was no man 
on earth for whom Cecil Roscoe entertained a higher re- 
gard and esteem than for Julian Temple. It was, per- 
haps, chiefly because the older man was so totally and 
entirely dissimilar to himself that Cecil, from the first 


THE EVIL REPORT. 


167 


hour of their acquaintance — an hour which dated from 
his earliest days in London — had been so strongly at- 
tracted by him. 

There was, possibly, a little one-sidedness about their 
friendship, Temple’s tastes and thoughts differing widely 
from his. JS'either did their characters hold anything in 
common. If Temple’s was the deeper and more thought- 
ful nature, Eoscoe was far more shrewd and worldly wise. 
Julian’s ideals were lofty and pure, almost too much so, 
indeed, to be practically workable. Cecil, on the con- 
trary, had no exalted theories, but, on the other hand, he 
held certain strict and undeviating principles, such as his 
friend had no sympathy with. The inherent tenderness 
of Julian’s heart, combined with the extreme wideness 
of his views, made a broader-minded man of him alto- 
gether than the young barrister, who was hard and 
intolerant in his judgments and somewhat rigidly unbend- 
ing in his decisions. Temple could put himself, mentally, 
in another person’s place, and he knew how to temper 
his opinions with a wide charity; but Cecil had no place 
but his own, and no standing-point but the fixed rules 
of an unalterable standard. 

Yet for all that he turned naturally to Julian in all 
the troubles and joys of his life; the sympathy that was 
in the man softened him insensibly, whilst the known 
rectitude of his life excited his admiration and com- 
manded his respect. It was, therefore, nothing wonder- 
ful that he should betake himself one morning to the 
pleasant rooms in Piccadilly where Julian, when in Lon- 
don, was habitually to be found. 

By good luck Temple was in town and at home. He 
had returned only last night from some rather protracted 
country visit, the three days in Fenshire — where he had 
been in bad spirits as w^ell as in bad form, and had shot 
detestably — having been followed up by a week in York- 
shire and a few days’ hunting in Cheshire. He had re- 
covered his capabilities for sport, and his spirits and 
temper completely during the last week, and had returned 
to London refreshed in body and entirely reinstated in 
his own good opinion of himself. He was* now minded 
to give himself up for a time to literary .work. There 
was a half-finished article on his conscience to which ho 


168 


A BAD LOT. 


was resolved to apply himself with vigour and assiduity. 
There had been a brief space a little while ago, during 
which he had felt incapable of tackling it. But, thank 
God, that was over now, and as he sat at his wide writing 
table, surrounded by books of reference and with a little 
sheaf of foolscap paper that grew and warmed into life 
under his rapid pen, he was, and he felt himself to be, 
one of the happiest men, at peace with the whole world, 
or what is better still, at peace with himself For 
nothing in the whole of this world is a better antidote 
for the troubles of life than mental labour heartily per- 
formed. It is doubtful indeed whether there are any 
earthly griefs so great, or any disappointments so bitter, 
that they cannot be assuaged and lessened by means of 
literary work. Only, if the Goddess of Comfort is to 
be won, she must be wooed in earnest. The writer’s 
heart must be in it, and his work must be the very best 
that he can give; for according to his work, so will his 
reward be. I take it that the consolations of religion 
are to the majority of mankind simply not in it in com- 
parison with the consolations of work, the work, I mean, 
that engrosses the whole heart and mind and being. Oh 
ye idlers ! ye flutterers upon life's stream of pleasure, 
whose only thought is amusement, and whose only 
anxiety is how to kill time, how little you know of the 
deepest and purest pleasure that existence can bring ; 
how entirely you miss, one and all of you, that supreme 
and inexhaustible delight of those who toil and whose 
toil has become a joy unto themselves ! 

Julian Temple was, indeed, but an amateur, in that ho 
wrote, in the first instance, not for money, but for love ; 
but who can conscientiously maintain that that is the 
less worthy object of the two ? He wrote mainly because 
he possessed the power of writing, and had he been a 
poor man, his talent would have rendered him rich ; as 
it was, he added very considerably to his not very munifi- 
cent income by the labour of his pen. To write, when 
he was in the vein for it, was a keen and real delight to 
him ; never so much so perhaps as when he knew that 
there was something within him that troubled his peace 
of mind, something that had better be scotched and slain 
and drenched out of him. 


THE EVIL REPORT. 


169 


This morning his pen flew rapidly over the paper ; he 
was engaged on a biographical essay, and he was keenly 
in sympathy with his subject. There was something of 
hero-worship in him, as there is in every man who is 
worth his salt, and the man whose life he was sketching 
was one of those who have done good to the world they 
have lived in, a good, perhaps, unrecognized during their 
lifetime, but which posterity is not slow to acknowledge. 
Temple had all his notes and historical references in 
front of him, but he did not look at them much ; he 
wrote rapidly and without making corrections, and as 
he wrote he warmed with his subject, so that his heart 
became full of the man whose noble life and martyr’s 
death he was recording. 

He was perhaps a little annoyed at Cecil’s entrance. 
Interruptions are very disturbing to a writer ; the crowd- 
ing words that are on the tip of the pen have a way of 
vanishing into space upon the opening of the door, and 
the ordinary “ How d’ye do ?” of the visitor seems to scat- 
ter the best framed sentences into thin air, whence, alas I 
they sometimes obstinately refuse to be resummoned at 
will. If Julian had not been the kindest-hearted of men 
he would, perhaps, have displayed his vexation openly ; 
but how is one to shut one’s door upon one’s best friend ? 
more especially when that friend wears a cloud of wretch- 
edness and misery upon his face. So all he did was to 
push aside his manuscript and lay down his pen with a 
sigh. 

“ I am afraid I am disturbing you horribly,” said Cecil ; 
‘‘ but really, old man, I want to consult you about some- 
thing very badly, indeed, or I should not have forced 
myself upon you at this hour.” 

“Ho apology is needed, Cecil; as you know, I am 
always only too glad to see you. What is it ? Are you 
in trouble ?” 

“I am horribly disturbed and worried, that is all; 
perhaps you will say that is quite enough,” answered 
the other ; he had taken off his overcoat and now he 
flung himself down in an arm-chair by the window. 
“ But before I tell you more, answer me one question, 
Julian. Do you remember that night that Major Prj’or 
and I dined with you at the Windham? It was the 
H 15 


170 


A BAD LOT. 


same evening that I told you about my engagement, as 
1 daresay you will recollect.” 

Temple nodded. 

“ And do you remember his talking to us about a 
fellow called Darley, and your own remarks about him ?” 

“ Perfectly.” 

“Had you any real reason, Julian, for what you said 
about that man ?” 

“ My dear boy, what did I say ? I almost forget.” 

“ You said that Colonel Yane Parley was an unprin- 
cipled libertine. What I want to know is whether you 
had any real and just cause for those words?” 

Temple laughed a little. “ This only shows how careful 
one ought to be about what one says ! They were rather 
strong words certainly; perhaps I ought not to have 
used them, for I remember now that old Pryor told us 
there were certain excuses to be made for Colonel Har- 
ley’s sins. I must honestly admit, Cecil, that I never 
knew the man myself, and that I only repeated what I 
had heard of him. It is a very bad habit ; 1 believe one 
ought not to do so. If I was in error, I am willing to 
retract, and to be more careful in future.” 

Cecil leant forward suddenly in his chair. “ For God’s 
sake do not treat it as a joke, Julian ; it is a matter 
almost of life and death to me !” he said with a painful 
agitation. 

“ My dear Cecil,” and Julian, who had certainly spoken 
with a pardonable lightness, became as grave as a judge 
instantly, and remained looking at his friend fixedly and 
inquiringly, waiting for him to explain himself. 

“I have been told something,” began Cecil after a 
moment of silence, and speaking with evident difficulty, 
“ something that makes it imperative for me to find out, 
if possible, wffiat sort of man this Harley was, and what 
was his character — I mean with — with regard to women. 
For heaven’s sake. Temple, tell me the truth : what do 
you know about him, and what have you heard ?” 

Both men’s faces w^ere earnest enough now, and both 
were pale. A horrible anxiety filled Cecil Eoscoe’s search- 
ing eyes, whilst a sense of impending calamity made 
Julian’s heart turn faint and cold. Between them both 
lay an unspoken name,, and the fair image of a girl who 


THE EVIL REPORT. 


171 


was dear to them both ; and how glad and thankful at 
that moment was Julian Temple that he could look his 
friend fairly and straightly in the face. 

“ I have always heard him badly spoken of in that re- 
spect,” said Temple, speaking slowly and very seriously ; 
“ he was a married man, and ho is said to have cruelly 
compromised a great many women. I can tell you no 
more than that.” 

“ And his is not a name, you think, that it would do 
a girl any good to have mentioned in the same breath 
as her own ? It would not be of benefit to her, you 
would say, to be seen alone in that man’s company ? — 
late at night, in public places, for instance?” 

“ God forbid that any woman dear to you or to me 
should be so seen or so spoken of,” replied Julian, fer- 
vently and emphatically. Cecil got up suddenly and 
walked away to the window, and stood there with his 
back to the room, looking out of it. Julian was drawing 
circles on his blotting-pad with his pen. 

“ My dear Cecil,” he said presently in a quieter voice, 
“this cannot possibly concern you — or — or Miss For- 
rester; the man is of an older generation altogether; 
he was, if you recollect Pryor told us, a friend of her 
father’s, a sort of boon companion of his fast young 
days — it is very improbable that he knew much of his 
daughters. Miss Nell, at any rate, must have been a 
child when ho went away, for I understood Pryor to 
say that Parley has not been seen in England for some 
years past.” 

Cecil turned round and interrupted him in a rough, 
choked voice. “ You don’t know what you are talking 
about — you don’t understand. Wait till I tell you: it 
was Nell ; she was quite young, but old enough to know. 
She was seen with that blackguard late at night, and 
again four nights later coming back to London with him 
by train. They were seen at Charing Cross Station late 
in the evening, and they got into a hansom and drove 
off together. Of course, the inference is that she had 
been away with this man for three days, at a time when 
her family believed her to be at her grandmother’s house 
in Wimpole Street.” 

“ My God, Cecil ! who told you such an awful thing ?” 


172 


A BAD LOT, 


“ A woman.” 

“ Ah ! I’d have staked my life on its being a woman ! 
and I’d stake it again that it is a lie! — a foul and dam- 
nable lie I You don’t mean to tell me, Cecil, that you 
believe it?” he cried almost with fury. 

Cecil was tramping up and down the room, distract- 
edly sweeping his hands across his forehead and running 
his fingers through his hair.- 

“ I don’t know what to believe, or what to disbelieve. 
The woman who told me has known her all her life ; she 
saw her distinctly on the two occasions ; the last time 
Nell spoke to her and tried to stop her — called to her 
by name ; she was hanging on to this fellow Darley’s 
arm. She swore to having seen them. I am morally 
convinced that her story is true ; it is impossible to 
me to doubt such evidence.” 

“ Look here, Cecil, there must be some mistake in all 
this. Sit down, and let us look this matter in the face,” 
said Julian, surmounting his own intolerable agitation 
with an almost superhuman effort. Cecil obeyed him 
in so far that he sank down into the chair he had pre- 
viously occupied and covered his face with his hands. 
“Now try and answer me quietly. To begin with, who 
is this woman ?” 

“ She is a Mrs. Hartwood, the widow of a clergyman 
who used to be the vicar of Marshlands — where they 
live, you know. She knew all the girls as babies.” 

“And where did you come across her?” 

“ Our little neighbour, Ida Vincent, knew her. She 
used to give her lessons in something or other — I forget 
what. You remember little Ida ? You took her in to 
dinner at my mother’s the other day. A good little 
thing, rather dull and stupid ; but my mother is fond of 
her, and naturally she takes an interest in my engage- 
ment. Well, it seems she sometimes goes out of kindness 
to visit this Mrs. Hartwood, who is poor, and supports 
herself by teaching, and in the course of conversation 
the Forresters’ name was casually mentioned, and some- 
thing was said by her about the girls, about Nell in 
particular, that frightened Ida. She seems to have been 
dreadfully distressed and upset by what Mrs. Hartwood 
let fall, quite unconsciously, I believe — and she did not 


THE EVIL REPORT. 


173 


know in the least what she ought to do. At last it 
seemed to her to be her duty to tell some one, and she 
told my aunt.” 

“ Mrs. Torrens. I think you said that she was very 
angry at your engagement, did you not?” 

“ Yes, that is true. Aunt Torrens is not an amiable 
person, and she has said a great many disagreeable 
things, but neither she nor my mother are pleased at 
my engagement, and I am not altogether surprised at 
it : it is quite natural that they should object to the con- 
nection.” 

“ Mo one could possibly object to her — to Miss Mell 
herself,” said Temple a little warmly ; “ but go on. What 
did Mrs. Torrens do ?” 

“ She went to see this Mrs. Hartwood and wormed 
the story out of her; that was yesterday. My aunt 
said nothing to me, but this morning, just as I was leav- 
ing the house, she asked me to come into the morning- 
room. I found Mrs. Hartwood sitting in front of the 
fire, and my mother in tears by her side. Mrs. Torrens 
told the woman to repeat her story to me, which she 
proceeded to do. I assure you when she began 1 had 
not the faintest idea what she was talking about; I 
thought at first that she was some begging woman 
whom they were interested in, and that they wanted to 
get me to give her some money. Even when she men- 
tioned the name of Forrester, and said that she had lived 
in the same village in Fenshire for years, I could not 
understand what she was driving at ; I thought she was 
merely talking about them in order to establish a claim 
on my charity. You may imagine, Julian, what I felt 
when I began to gather what it was all leading up to ; 
when the woman began to speak about a sacred duty 
which she owed to the cause of morality, of a secret 
which had lain untold in her heart for years, and which 
nothing but a sense of right now induced her to divulge ; 
and then she spoke of Nell, and of what she had seen. 
Julian, I would not live through those first few awful 
moments again for anything on earth. I — T — am afraid 
I made a fool of myself ; I believe I fainted.” 

“ My dear Cecil,” and Temple, despite his utmost 
efforts, could not keep a little angry impatience out of 

15 * 


174 


A BAD LOT. 


his voice, “ it is impossible that you can accept this in- 
conceivable slander — the gossip, no doubt, of an ill- 
natured woman. What proof can the woman give of 
such a thing being true? Can anybody corroborate her 
story ?” 

“ She says her husband was with her, but he is dead. 
What am I to do, Julian ?” 

“ Do !” cried Temple, hotly and indignantly ; “ do what 
every generous and honourable instinct within you ought 
to prompt you to do — refuse to believe this abominable 
story. Your heart must surely tell you that it is a lie; 
treat it as such, and dismiss it from your mind altogether; 
and, above all, if you value the woman you love, do not, 
for God’s sake, sully her ears and outrage her heart by 
spealdng to her about it.” 

Cecil rose once more from his seat and paced down 
the room slowly, his hands clasped behind him, his face 
bent towards the ground in gloomy abstraction ; then he 
came back and stood by the table ; he was very pale, 
and he looked almost haggard with grief, but the lips 
were set coldly and hardly. 

“ I cannot dismiss it in that way, Julian; this matter 
must be sifted thoroughly; remember that Nell’s charac- 
ter has been completely taken away to my mother and 
my aunt. I owe it to them as well as to myself to in- 
vestigate this woman’s statements thoroughly. Con- 
sidering all the facts bearing upon the case, I am sure 
you will see that it is my duty to do so. Eemember 
the evil name borne by these Forresters — the story of 
the mother, the unsatisfactory character of the father — 
wh^^, I don’t mind telling you that he has already bor- 
rowed a considerable sum of money from me, which I 
have not the faintest expectation of ever seeing back; 
then the way those girls have been brought up— without 
jminciples, without religion ! Oh, it all comes back upon 
me now with a terrible significance, I assure you; all 
these things that have been dinned into my ears on every 
side ever since the commencement of my engagement. 
And then, if this man Darley, who had not apparently 
a shred of reputation, got hold of a young girl brought 
up as she had been, what more likely than that he was 
able to demoralize her completely? What else could 


THE EVIL REPORT. 


175 


you possibly expect? The pieces of the story fit into 
each other all too well for me to put it aside, as you 
suggest, as mere idle and groundless gossip.” 

“And do you mean to tell me, then, that you are 
going to acquiesce in this cruel slander against the girl 
you love?” 

“ God forbid. I am not going to acquiesce in it if I 
can possibly prove it to be false, and that is why I have 
come to you. I want you to help me, Julian.” 

Then Julian became angry in downright earnest — so 
angry that Cecil was a little bit surprised and puzzled, 
not understanding those secret and deep-seated forces 
which were moving him to anger. 

“ I will have nothing to do with it ; nothing,” he said, 
with agitation. “ Do you suppose I would move a finger 
to bring shame and disgrace upon a girl like that ? Why, 
I’d stake my very life upon her goodness ! 1 don’t want 

anybody to tell me anything about her. I can see for 
myself what she is.” And then he thought about that 
walk in the darkness and the wind, with the slender 
swaying figure that leant upon his arm, and the lovely 
candid eyes that had looked up into his under the fitful 
moonlight, and he remembered all the sweet thoughts 
and words that had flashed from her soul into his own. 
How could he suppose for one moment that this girl 
was not what she seemed to be, pure and honest and 
good ? The bare possibility of a doubt of her made him 
recoil with horror and dismay. And yet, here was Cecil, 
who should have felt all this a thousand times more, 
standing opposite him discussing the merits and demerits 
of the case like a dispassionate looker-on ! It was in- 
tolerable — inconceivable! “I would not have believed 
it of you, Cecil,” he said hotly. 

“ My dear fellow, if your whole future life depended 
upon it, as mine does, I think you would look at in a 
different light. I want you to be my friend and stand 
by me, Julian. Your very faith in Hell is a help and a 
comfort to me, and I pray God that your judgment of 
her may bo correct. Look here, I have made up my 
mind to go up to Wimpole Street and see the grand- 
mother, and I want you to come with me.” 

“ How ?” 


176 


A BAD LOT. 


“ Yes, now ; this very moment. It is certain that that 
old woman knows if there was anything wrong, if only 
we can make her speak, and I want some one to be a 
witness to what she says, and you will not be the friend 
I take you for if you do not stand by me.” 

“ Of course, I will come, if you wish it,” Julian an- 
swered reluctantly. And then he got up and rang the 
bell for his coat and hat. 

“ Cecil,” he said, turning suddenly to him whilst his 
man had gone to fetch his things and to call a hansom, 
“ if — if — this story should be true, do you mean that you 
would not forgive her — that you would break off your 
engagement ?” 

Cecil made no answer, for the servant opened the door 
at that moment to tell them that the hansom was wait- 
ing ; but when they were seated in the cab, on the way 
to Wimpole Street, he spoke at last after a long silence. 

“ It is you yourself, Julian, who have often said to me 
that honour comes before love. If this story has but 
the semblance of truth in it, and if this man of evil 
reputation has compromised ell Forrester and damaged 
her good name, then I owe it to myself and to my dear 
mother, who is a good and religious woman, not to bring 
to her as a daughter one who is not absolutely stainless 
in her antecedents. If she really knew this fellow so 
intimately that she went about with him late at night 
alone, it is quite enough for me, even although she may 
be actually innocent of sin. I shall not make her my 
wife.” 

And Julian Temple held his tongue and answered him 
not a word, lest his indignation and wrath should betray 
him into a confession of his own unlucky love. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

LADY FORRESTER TELLS LIES 

Concerning lies — the Dowager Lady Forrester was 
wont to say that to tell one badly is a contemptible 
blunder, but that to tell one well amounts to a fine art. 


LADY FORRESTER TELLS LIES 


177 


The one must be looked back upon with shame, whilst 
the other may be justly regarded with a sense of 
pardonable pride. 

It is quite certain that her ladyship herself, had by a 
long and varied experience, earned the right to consider 
most of the falsehoods she had uttered through life 
under the latter and more favourable heading. 

“ There is no earthly use in telling a lie if you are 
certain to be found out in it,” was one of her favourite 
axioms, and, presumably, the reverse of the saying: 
“Tell a lie if you can’t be found out,” held good also in 
her estimation. 

When Lady Forrester found herself confronted one 
morning at noon by two well-dressed young men with 
serious faces, and when one of them proceeded to ask 
her to give him “ a plain answer to a plain question,” 
she became instantly aware that this was a case when 
all her greatest talents would probably be called into 
play. 

“ I don’t care to see visitors in the morning, as a rule,” 
she said to them very frankly when the butler ushered 
them into the dining-room, where she habitually sat 
until her lunch time. “ To begin with, I don’t get up 
early. I am never down until nearly twelve, and feel 
only half alive during the morning hours. Then again, 
I don’t like to be seen by daylight — candlelight is more 
becoming to me. You’ll go away, both of you, and de- 
clare I was rouged and that I wear a wig; perhaps you 
might never have found it out in the afternoon, but the 
morning light shows up these little details so painfully,” 
and the old lady laughed sardonically, entirely at her 
own expense. 

“ My dear Lady Forrester,” began Cecil, feeling much 
confused by this speech, to which he hardly knew what 
to reply I must apologize for calling at such an hour 
as this, and were it not for the fact ” 

“ Oh, you needn’t say it over again, my dear fellow ; 
you are Nell’s young man, and so you think you have a 
free entrance to her grandmother’s house at all hours. 
Well, well, I don’t object to treating you as one of the 
family, and you are welcome to make any little jokes 
you like afterwards about my paint and powder. But 
m 


178 


A BAD LOT. 


why have you brought this gentleman? Your great 
friend is he? Oh, of course 1 am delighted to see him. 
Hove a good-looking man at all times and seasons, even 
in the morning ; but isn’t it rather formidable ? It 
looks as if you wanted us both to witness your last will 
and testament ; perhaps you do ? It must be yours, you 
know, because mine was signed and witnessed a long 
time ago and I shall never alter it again.” 

And so she ran on with her little voluble chatter, just 
to gain time and to feel the way, her sharp eyes glancing 
quickly from one to the other as she talked. 

“My friend, Mr. Julian Temple, has been kind 

enough ” began Cecil again laboriously, but Lady 

Forrester tossed him up again as if she were playing a 
game of battledore and shuttlecock with him. 

“ Oh ! Temple is his name ? Any relation to Lord 
Culverdale, Mr. Temjde? His brother? Oh indeed! 
and his heir, are you not? The present man has no 
children, I believe. I used to know your grandfather, 
Mr. Temple. He was one of my dancing partners. Ha ! 
ha I that sounds funny, doesn’t it, to hear me talk of 
ball partners at my age! seventy-nine, sir, last birthday 
— what do you think of that? and talking about my 
dancing days still. Ah well, there is only one dance left 
for me now ; I shall have to dance into my coffin next.” 

All this might be very entertaining, but it was very 
wide of the mark, and Cecil, in despair, made another 
effort to bring his lively old hostess back to the original 
question he had already asked of her. 

“ I do not wish to intrude long upon you. Lady For- 
rester; 1 quite know that my visit is at an abnormal 
hour ; I only want to ask you to give me ” 

“ Oh, yes, yes, I know ; a plain answer to a plain 
question. You have said so before, you know. 1 dis- 
like plain things, and plain people too — they are always 
so disagreeable. Don’t you agree with me, Mr. Temple ? 
And you, I suppose, have come to listen to the ‘ plain 
question ’ and to take down the ‘ plain answer,’ have you 
not? a sort of witness upon your oath, I take it.” 

She really was a very terrible old lady. Major Pryor 
had certainly been quite right in saying that the devil 
was not in the running with her. Both young men 


LADY FORRESTER TELLS LIES. 179 

looked embarrassed and a little guilty, whilst Lady 
Forrester went oif into a voiceless chuckle of unholy 
glee. 

“Well, well, ask away; ask away,” she continued, 
looking with merry twinkling eyes from one to the 
other ; “ go on with your ‘ plain question,’ my dear boy. 
Have you ever noticed how simple and ingenuous your 
friend Mr. Eoscoe is, Mr. Temple? I find him so very 
refreshing and soothing. Go on, my dear boy. Con- 
sider me to be on my oath, ‘ the whole truth and nothing 
but th^ truth, s’ h’lp me God,’ as they say. Ask away, 
young man ; it is your turn now ; I am not going to say 
another word.” 

“ Lady Forrester, I pray you to be serious,” then said 
Cecil, acting on her advice ; “ this is a very serious mat- 
ter to me, and I am sure you will answer me frankly 
and relieve me from a very cruel anxiety. I will come 
to the point at once. There was a man you once knew, 
I think — he was a friend of yours and of your son Gor- 
don, iN’cll’s father; his name was Darley, Colonel Yano 

Barley ” And then Lady Forrester knew all 

about it. 

She had already suspected what was coming, but now 
she was sure ; there was no more taking her by surprise 
possible. 

“ Certainly there was such a person,” she answered 
sweetly ; “ he was a delightful man, but a desperate 
blackguard, and he was an acquaintance of mine and 
also a friend of my son Gordon in his bachelor days; 
they were about the same age.” 

“ And — did he know — was he also a friend of Nell’s ? ” 

“Of Nell’s?” cried Lady Forrester, laughing gaily; 
“ oh, he may have held her on his knee as a baby, it is 
quite possible, but that hardly constitutes a friendship, 
does it ?” 

“ Certainly not. But I did not mean that exactly.” 

“ Then what on earth do you mean, my dear young 
man? Is there another ‘plain question ’ coming? For 
goodness’ sake out with it if there is. What more do 
you want to know?” 

“ I want to know, Lady Forrester,” and Cecil’s face 
became hard and stern, “ whether this man, this ‘ black- 


180 


A BAD LOT. 


guard’ I think you call him, knew Nell when she was 
grown up; whether she ever went about with him, 
intimately, alone in fact.” 

“Never, I should say, never; I can’t remember ever 
having heard of such a thing, and I am sure I should 
have known of it if it had been the case. Has she ever 
told you she did ?” Lady Forrester said this perfectly 
gravely and with an appearance of great openness and 
candour. She did not, however, excite herself or pro- 
test, and she asked the final question with an air of 
innocent curiosity. The matter was becoming serious 
indeed, and one hair’s breadth too much or too little, she 
knew, would be fatal. 

“ Of course he has somehow heard about that old 
story! but how, and where?” she thought. 

“Has Nell spoken to you about Colonel Harley?” she 
repeated with tranquil interest. “ I should hardly have 
thought she remembered him, she was such a mere 
child.” 

“Nell has never mentioned his name to me at all. 
But I have heard an unpleasant rumour that she was 
seen about with him at one time,” and Cecil looked 
down awkwardly and confusedly into his hat. Then, 
after a minute’s pause, he looked up again, for he was 
determined to sift the matter to its very foundation, and 
he went on boldly and bravely : 

“ And you must forgive me. Lady Forrester, for men- 
tioning one more thing. It has been said in my hearing 
and in that of my friend here, that you yourself have 
alluded to a ‘ scrape,’ an adventure of some kind or other 
of a somewhat discreditable nature, which befel one of 
your granddaughters. Now, it concerns me very nearly 
to know whether that granddaughter was Nell — was 
it ?” and he looked up at her sharply and scrutinizingly. 

For a moment she seemed to hesitate, to be upset, to 
be confused ; it was palpable to them both that there 
was something she desired to conceal and to hold back. 
The hearts of the two men sank, a dumb anger shook 
Julian, a dull despair overcame Cecil. 

Yet it was only the cleverest bit of acting she had as 
yet treated them to. It was all put on, that hesitation 
and confusion, put on with a purpose. 


LADY FORRESTER TELLS LIES. 


181 


“My dear Mr. Eoscoe,” she said at length, fidgeting 
nervously with those everlasting cards that lay upon 
the small table betwixt them and her, picking them up 
in her shrivelled fingers and dropping them down again, 
one by one upon the pack, whilst her eyes seemed 
studiously to avoid theirs. 

“ My dear Mr. Eoscoe, your question places me in a 
very awkward predicament. I am anxious to answer 
you openly and frankly, yet I hardly know how to do 
so without saying something that 1 very much dislike 
having to say. 1 would gladly set your anxiety at rest, 
yet in order to do this I must — in short, I must tell you 
something that I would very much rather not tell you.” 
And then she flashed her eyes up suddenly into Cecil’s. 
“ But I cannot allow you to have any misapprehensions, 
Cecil Eoscoe; it would not be right, would it? to per- 
mit you to retain this unjust suspicion? I must speak; 
at all hazards 1 feel I must speak! Oh no, my dear 
fellow, it was not Nell — Nell never knew Colonel Earley 
— but I entreat you both to let this be in strictest 
confidence between us ; do not, for heaven’s sake, ever 
breathe again what I am going to tell you to any living 
soul; no, Nell did not know Colonel Earley well, but 
poor EoLtie did.” 

“ Eottie !” cried Cecil with excitement and a great 
gush of unspeakable relief. “ It was Eottie, then, who 
was alone with him at eleven o’clock at night in the Ex- 
hibition gardens, and who was again seen coming back 
to London with him three days after by a late afternoon 
train ? Oh, thank God, thank God for that !” 

“I know nothing at all about all that,” said Lady 
Forrester sharply, and this time truly enough, for these 
details had never been confided to her, and little as 
Cecil guessed it, the old lady was nearer to betraying 
herself at that moment than she had been all along, 
“ neither do I quite see why you should take occasion to 
thank God so piously and vociferously. Eottie may 
have made a fool of herself, but Eottie is my grandchild 
as well as Nell, and quite as dear to me, for the matter 
of that; and, after all, poor Eottie! even if she did lose 
her heart and her head and do things she has no doubt 
regretted bitterly since, why, it’s a long time ago now, 

16 


182 


A BAD LOT. 


and no harm came of it, it’s all past and forgotten, and 
she is at any rate fortunate in one thing, she hasn’t got 
a ‘ lover,’ heaven save the mark ! to go ferreting about 
trying to discover something against her reputation. 
Oh, you needn’t apologize, Mr. Eoscoe ; I daresay you 
are quite within your rights, 1 don’t deny it for a 
moment ; but the next time you come to me with a 
cock and bull story about one of my dear grandchil- 
dren, you had better make quite sure first whether you 
have got hold of the right end of the stick or not,” and 
then having worked herself quite up into a rage, the 
old lady drew out her pocket-handkerchief and flour- 
ished it about in front of her eyes, but whether those 
tears at which she dabbed so vigorously were tears of 
sheer rage or whether they were what is termed 
crocodile tears, it was impossible for mortal man rightly 
to determine. 

The two men had risen to their feet. Oecil looked 
relieved and triumphant, for there was a great weight 
off his mind. Dottie was nothing to him ; he had never 
intended his wife to see very much of either of her sis- 
ters after she was married to him, and now ho made up 
his mind that she should drop them altogether, Dottie 
at any rate should never set her foot within his doors ; 
she had forfeited all right to his consideration. 

He began to suspect that Millie was no better than 
she was, for he was eager to cast them both on to the 
sacrificial fire, and as to their father, who had permitted 
his daughter to drift into an intimacy with a man of 
such a disreputable character as this Colonel Darley, 
why, Cecil felt that he had no words bad enough to de- 
nounce him. Nell — if, in the face of the fearful sins of 
her whole race, he still was magnanimous enough to 
hold his tongue and to marry her — must be made to 
understand clearly that she would have to cut herself 
off entirely from the whole of her belongings. A Mrs. 
Cecil Eoscoe and a Dottie Forrester should never, if he 
could help it, be bracketed about together. 

He thanked Lady Forrester heartily for her informa- 
tion, and expressed his deep regret for having so dis- 
tressed and upset her. 

“We will not intrude any further upon you now, Lady 


LADY FORRESTER TELLS LIES. 


183 


Forrester, and I am only too penitent for having upset 
you so much. 1 can quite understand that at this 
moment you should feel some annoyance with me for 
having wrung this disgraceful episode of Dottie’s past 
life from you, but 1 am sure, when you come to think it 
over quietly, that you will do me the justice to under- 
stand that, situated as I am with regard to Nell, it would 
have been impossible for me to have left the matter 
uninvestigated, and I am convinced that you will feel 
glad that I came to you openly and that you have told 
me the whole truth, and so rendered me able to vindicate 
the good name of my future wife.” 

“What an insufferable prig Nell’s young man is!” 
thought Lady Forrester during this speech, and then 
she lowered her pocket-handkerchief and looked at him 
keenly with eyes in which there wms certainly no ves- 
tige of those “ unshed tears,” which poets and rhymesters 
describe so pathetically. 

“ I can trust you, 1 hope, Mr. Eoscoe, not to betray 
my poor dear misguided Lottie to Nell?” she said in a 
low and trembling voice. 

“ It is not likely that I should sully her ears with 
such a story,” replied Cecil coldly and sternl 3 ^ 

“Ah well, I don’t know about ‘sullying.’ Lottie 
didn’t do anything so very dreadful after all,” she an- 
swered sharply; “there is no crime in foolishness and 
imprudence as far as I know.” 

“Folly and imprudence when they are played into 
the hands of such a man as Colonel Larley appear to 
me to be faults that can scarcely be described as venial,” 
replied Cecil gravely. “ By the way, Lady Forrester, 
where is this man Larley now? Can you tell me?” 
Alas for Lady Forrester that he should have asked that 
one more question I She fell into the trap unconsciously. 

“ Oh yes, I heard from him only yesterday ; he has 
purchased a property in Ceylon and is living there alto- 
gether. I have his letter somewhere.” Lady Forrester 
said all this quite airily and glibly, and then she made 
believe to search in her pockets and in a little reticule of 
Eussian leather which she always carried about with 
her. “ Lear me, dear me, 1 had it here only this morn- 
ing ; I must have left it upstairs.” 


184 


A BAD LOT. 


“ It is of no consequence ; I do not wish to see the 
letter. As long as you can assure me that the man is 
not likely to reappear in London, and to force himself 
into the society of my wife, that is all I desire to know.” 

“ Oh, he is not at all likely to come back. He tells 
me he has got a charming place out there, on the sea 
coast ; a beautiful land locked bay, where his yacht can 
lie.” 

“ He has a yacht, then ?” 

This question was put by Julian Temple; it was the 
first time that he had intervened at all in the discussion, 
and the way in which he uttered the words made Lady 
Forrester look at him attentively ; there was something 
in the expression of his eyes that made her uneasy, and 
all at once she became aware that she had gone too far 
— that she had overshot the mark. The conviction that 
she had blundered made her answer quite sharply and 
crossly : 

“ Should I say he had one if he hadn’t?” 

Julian bowed. “I beg your pardon. You know a 
great deal about him, I perceive.” 

“I know enough, at any rate, to convince my grand- 
daughter’s future husband that he need be under no 
anxiety as to his dropping in to lunch or dinner in his 
well-conducted household. And now, gentlemen, since 
you have, I imagine, pumped everything out of me that 
you came to find out, I must ask you both to be so kind 
as to leave me. I am quite tired out and must really 
have a few moments’ rest and peace before my luncheon, 
or I shall be having one of my bad attacks again.” She 
reached her hand out to the bell, and there was cer- 
tainly nothing left for either of them to do but to bow 
themselves out of the room as speedily as possible. 

As they went out of the door, a gentleman was just 
being admitted into the house. The hall was dark and 
narrow, and the new-comer passed them closely, stand- 
ing aside, waiting to be announced, whilst the servant 
opened the front door for the departing visitors. He 
was a tall, dark, middle-aged man, who had once, prob- 
ably, had a handsome face and a distinguished figure, 
but his head was bent now and his shoulders stooped ; 
his face, too, was thin and lined and careworn; he 


AND HAS TOLD THEM BADLY. 


185 


looked like a man who has grown preternaturally old 
before his time. As the outgoing men passed him, he 
heard the younger of them say to the elder in a lowered 
voice : 

“ It is a great comfort to me to know that that fellow 
Darley is out of England.” 

The man, who was standing in the hall, turned his 
head round sharply and looked hard at the speaker. 
He did not think he had ever seen either him or his 
companion in his life before. 

“ Very much obliged to you, sir,” he was on the point 
of saying aloud in reply to the words he had overheard. 
But on second thoughts he only said them silently to 
himself, smiling a little as he did so over the comedy of 
the situation. 

Eoscoe and Temple put on their hats and went away 
together out of the front door, which the butler was 
holding open for them. Neither of them took the 
slightest notice of the visitor who had just entered the 
house. It is possible indeed that in the dim and uncer- 
tain light of the narrow and dingy hall, they mistook 
him for some tradesman or clerk. 

The butler came back after shutting to the door. 

“ Lady Forrester is at home, you say ?” 

“Yes, sir. You needn’t tell me your name, sir. I 
remember you perfectly,” added the old man. 

A moment later Lady Forrester was nearly startled 
out of her seven senses by a name that was quietly 
spoken by Lawks at the door : 

“Colonel Vane Larley, my lady.” 


CHAPTER XX. 

— AND HAS TOLD THEM BADLY. 

“ Gracious heavens alive !” cried the old lady, with a 
violent start that was perfectly and absolutely genuine, 
“is it your ghost or yourself? or is it the devil in per- 
son ? What do you mean by walking in upon me in 
this dreadful manner ?” 


16 * 


186 


A BAD LOT. 


She was panting under the rouge and the fake, her 
complexion had turned a sickly green, and her old 
hands shook as though she had the palsy. 

Colonel Darley took a chair and sat down opposite to 
her with a careless laugh. 

“ 1 am sorry to have startled you. Yes, it is I — my- 
self — or, at least, what is left of me. Pray calm yourself, 
Lady Forrester. And it is not the devil come to fetch 
you this time ; allow me to reassure you on this essential 
point.” 

She had seized the Morning Post and was fanning 
herself vigorously. 

“ Phew ! how my heart beats ! It is like your impu- 
dence coming in upon one in this way without a word of 
warning. Oh ! Good heavens ! ” as an awful thought 
shot suddenly into her mind, “were they out of the 
house when Dawks announced you? For pity’s sake, 
don’t tell me that they heard your name.” 

“Who? Oh, you mean those amiable gentlemen 1 
met on the doorstep ? One of them mentioned me as he 
went out in the most flattering manner. 1 was just go- 
ing to ask you who they were and why they expressed 
so much satisfaction at my being out of England ? ” 

“But did they hear 30 ur name? Did they find out 
who you were?” she persisted with much agitation. 
“ Oh ! it would be too terrible !” 

“No, I don’t really think they did. But why would 
it be terrible? Were they detectives? Though I don’t 
know why 1 should be frightened even if they were. 
1 have committed many sins in my time, doubtless, but 
hitherto I have managed to keep clear of the criminal 
courts. I have neither forged nor embezzled, nor en- 
riched myself by means of a bogus company. I have 
not advertised a patent bandage as a specific for every 
disease to which flesh is heir to, neither have I as yet 
murdered anybody, much as 1 have often yearned to do 
so. It is probably more by luck than by wit that i 
have kept clear of these enormities, but as by a happy 
accident I have done so, I really cannot see why 1 
should fear to encounter any man, even a detective in 
plain clothes, who may happen to be within your gates.” 

“ If you will just leave off talking nonsense and listen 


— AND HAS TOLD THEM BADLY, 


187 


to me, I will tell you why. It is because, not five 
minutes ago, I had sworn by everything that is holy that 
you were living in Ceylon, and that 1 had had a letter 
from you two days ago with a description of an estate 
you had purchased there. I gave them every detail; 
why, I even offered to show them your letter !” 

Colonel Parley burst out laughing. 

“ Oh, I see ; it is you who are afraid of being found 
out. Lady Forrester. What on earth caused you to 
romance so delightfully about me? and why, if you 
wanted to do so, did you not do it more cleverly ? Why, 
I’ve been back in England over a month.” 

“Look here, Yane Parley, this is no joking matter. 
One of those young men who has just gone out, the 
younger of the two, is engaged to be married to my 
granddaughter, Nell.” 

“ The devil he is ! ” 

“Yes, and the whole thing will be off if he finds out 
that shabby trick you played on the poor child when 
you were last at home. He smells a rat as it is ; some- 
body has told him something; the Lord only knows 
who it could have been. Cecil Eoscoe is without exag- 
geration the greatest prig in creation, a sort of enraged 
virtue is his creed ; he is a Mrs. Grundy in trousers ; if 
he thought for one moment that you had tried to get 
poor little Nell to run away with you, he would chuck 
her over in a moment without a scruple. I put him off, 
though. I flatter myself I put him off completely, if 
only I had had the sense to leave it alone then ; but 
when he began pressing me about you, where you were, 
and so on, like a fool I laid it on too thickly, and told 
him you were settled in Ceylon, and would never come 
back any more. I must be in my dotage, I think, to 
have made such a mistake ; and the worst of it is that 
the friend, the big man, the older of the two, whom 
young Eoscoe evidently brought as a witness to any- 
thing I might let out, the friend suspects me. I saw he 
did directly I began to hunt for your letter in my 
pocket. Oh, dear, what a fool I was,” and the old lady 
went off suddenly into a little ripple of laughter, and 
shook her shoulders until the tears came into her eyes. 

Put Colonel Yane Parley laughed no longer. He sat 


188 


A BAD LOT. 


looking down sadly and gloomily at his feet. How 
worn and aged he was; all his smart jauntiness had 
forsaken him, he was only now a broken - down and 
somewhat shabby elderly man, the mere shadow of his 
former self. 

“ Look here. Lady Forrester, it is precisely about Hell 
that I have come to speak to you; I shouldn’t perhaps 
have troubled you with a visit but for her, for I am 
down on my luck just now. I left my yacht six months 
ago, a total wreck on a coral reef, and only escaped 
being drowned myself by the merest accident ; then I 
nearly died of yellow fever, and now I’ve come home to 
find myself half beggared by the failure of the business 
house from which I derived my income. Almost every- 
thing is gone. I have only a few hundreds a year left 
to me, little better than starvation to a man who has 
always lived on the best of everything, as 1 have done. 
If it weren’t for little Hell, I think I would go away 
and blow my brains out.” 

The recital of his troubles did not appear to touch her 
heart in the very least. 

“Well,” she said tranquilly, “I recommend you to do 
so. Vane Harley, sooner than that you should show 
your wicked face to my granddaughter again ! How 
dare you come here to ask me about Hell ! you’ve done 
her harm enough as it is, let me tell you.” 

“ That is exactly why I have come,” replied Colonel 
Harley. “ I want, if I can, to repair the harm I did to 
her. Look here. Lady Forrester ; hear me out, if jmu 
please, before you set to work to curse me with your 
accustomed volubility. With all my misfortunes there 
is one great piece of good luck which has befallen me. 
My wife is dead. I am a widower, and I am prepared 
to marry your granddaughter Hell.” 

Lady Forrester stared at him for a moment hard 
through her glasses, as though he were some strange 
and curious wild beast. Then she lay back in her 
chair, dropped her glasses and uttered a little snorting 
laugh of derision. 

“ Well, upon my word and honour ! To the vanity of 
man there is certainl}" no limit. This passes everything 
I ever heard in my life, I think. You are really ex- 


— AND HAS TOLD THEM BADLY. 


189 


tremely kind and condescending, Colonel Yane Darley. 
You, who are nothing but an elderly wreck — you look 
nearly as old as I do, for you haven’t taken one-quarter 
so much pains to hide your age as I have — ^you are 
broken in health and in fortune, and yet you have the 
unutterable conceit to suppose that my beautiful grand- 
daughter, who is twenty-one and one of the loveliest 
girls in England ” 

“Ah, she has grown up beautiful, has she?” he 
interrupted quickly and eagerly. “ I knew she would.” 

“ She is one of the handsomest young women I ever 
saw. And what on earth have you got to offer her, I 
should like to know? You have lost your looks and 
your money, and you have grown horribly old. What 
do you imagine Nell would see in you?” 

Colonel Darley had flushed darkly under her scorn 
and derision, he bit his lip, but he was careful not to 
betray his rising temper. 

“ It suits you to laugh. Lady Forrester, and you put 
my case in a nutshell, no doubt. But Nell loved me 
once; 1 taught her to love me. It is possible that she 
loves me now, and that she would be willing to forgive 
me.” 

“ When I tell you that she is engaged to be married 
to Cecil Eoscoe !” almost shouted Lady Forrester, stamp- 
ing her foot angrily. 

“But does she care for him? You say he is a prig 
and apparently an ass. Nell is too good for that sort of 
fellow, and by God ! I think I could make her throw 
him over if she cares for me still.” 

“ Don’t flatter yourself for one moment that she cares 
for you. Nell is very fond of her young man, and she 
has no feeling for you at all now — save anger and hu- 
miliation. Cecil Eoscoe may be a prig, but he has got 
a respectable income and an increasing business at the 
bar. He will make her an excellent husband, and the 
only reparation you can possibly make to Nell now is to 
keep out of her way. vShe may possibly be rather too 
good for him, but she is millions of miles too good for 
you, worn-out old roue as you are.” 

“ My dear Lady Forrester, I assure you I am a re- 
formed character. I have turned over a new leaf. You 


190 


A BAD LOT. 


may not believe me, but it is a fact that I was sincerely 
and deeply in love with Nell, and I have loved her ever 
since. I think she is the only good woman I have ever 
come across,” he went on, with real feeling. “ If I 
could win her away from that fellow, I would devote 
my whole life to her, and I assure you she should never 
have cause to regret it.” 

“ Oh ! that is so like a man,” cried the old lady sar- 
castically. “You waste all your youth and your early 
manhood in riotous living, and then when you are 
broken in health and fortune, you come and offer the 
dregs of your played-out existence to a beautiful young 
creature with her life all before her, and you actually 
believe you are doing her a positive honour by the 
offer.” 

“I think nothing of the sort. Lady Forrester. I 
don’t know why you should be so insulting to me ; in 
old days you and I used to be friends.” 

“And so we might be still, if you would leave Nell 
out of your calculations. Colonel Darley. Nell is per- 
feetly happy ; leave her alone. I can’t have you spoil 
the child’s prospects.” 

lie was standing up now and he had taken up his hat. 
The footman had already brought in the cloth and tray 
as first instalments of Lady Forrester’s frugal lunch, 
and Vane Barley had no intention of tempting Provi- 
dence by remaining to share that meal. He knew of 
old the sort of table that Lady Forrester kept. 

He sighed as he rose to his feet, and there was a sad, 
broken down look about the man that would have 
touched any other woman’s heart — save the one he had 
now to deal with. 

“I will not spoil her. prospects,” he said gently, “and 
if she is happy, God knows I do not want to disturb 
her.” 

Lady Forrester was casting anxious eyes towards the 
preparations for her lunch ; she was dreadfully afraid 
he would expect to be asked to stay. 

“ That’s right ; and you won’t go down to Marshlands 
and worry them, will you?” At her heart she was 
thinking, “ One grilled chicken leg ! I can’t possibly 
invite him to stop.” 


— AND HAS TOLD THEM BADLY. 


191 


“ I don’t suppose Gordie would care much to see me 
now,” said Yane Darley, smiling bitterly, “for I’m about 
as poor a man as he is now.” 

“Ah — well, keep away from Marshlands, then, there’s 
a good fellow. I’d ask you to stay to lunch with me. 
Colonel Darley, only it so happens that ” 

“Ob, pray make no excuses. I am just off. I never 
eat lunch.” 

“ It’s much more wholesome to do without it, I am 
sure,” assented the old woman with alacrity. “ Good- 
bye — sorry to see jmu looking so seedy ; I recommend 
you to go abroad, to the south somewhere; England is 
a bad place for people who suffer from fever.” 

“England is a bad place for people who suffer from 
poverty,” amended Yane Darley, a little contemptuously. 
“Don’t, be alarmed. Lady Forrester; I won’t trouble 
your granddaughter’s peace of mind ; she is happy, it 
seems, and I daresay she has forgotten me.” 

“ Oh, she has, completely.” 

“ Well,” and again he sighed, “I should like to have 
seen her again, and if she had been free, or if her heart 
was not in this marriage, I would have tried my luck 
with her. As it is ” 

“As it is, such an idea is not only nonsensical, but 
perfectly impossible. But if you are so very anxious to 
marry again, there is Dottie ; I daresay she would be 
only too delighted. Poor Dottie has never had a chance 
in her life ; I should say she would jump at you.” 

“I am infinitely obliged to you for the generosity of 
the offer. Lady Forrester,” said Colonel Darley, with a 
laugh, “ and I am really extremely sorry that I cannot 
oblige you; I have no yearnings whatever in the 
direction of Dottie.” 

“ Oh, well, I thought I might as well mention her. 
Ho offence, of course. Either Dottie or Millie are to be 
had for the asking, but Nell is another matter.” 

“ Yes, Nell is another matter,” he assented gravely, 
and then he took his leave and departed. 

Meanwhile the two men who had gone out of Lady 
Forrester’s house at the moment that Colonel Darley 
bad entered it, had walked away together down Wim- 
pole Street with no suspicions whatever of the identity 


192 


A BAD LOT. 


of the man with whom they had almost brushed 
shoulders in the narrow darkness of her ladyship’s 
entrance hall. 

Cecil was in high spirits. 

“ Well, you see how right I was to go straight to the 
fountain head. It was better to take the bull by the 
horns — the old lady by the wig would perhaps be the 
correcter simile — was it not?” 

“ Certainly.” 

“ There is nothing like going to the bottom of things 
at once, I am sure,” continued Cecil ; “ nine times out of 
ten a story of this kind turns out to be a misapprehen- 
sion altogether, if it is thoroughly investigated. You 
were quite right, old man, to tell me not to believe any- 
thing against her. I ought to have known at once that 
Nell is as good as gold; I am ashamed of myself for 
doubting her ; you can’t think what a load is lifted off 
my mind.” 

“ I am very glad you are satisfied.” Somehow Julian 
Temple’s answers lacked enthusiasm ; they were given 
spasmodically and a little absently, as though he were 
thinking about something else. 

Cecil was so exuberantly delighted that he did not 
remark his friend’s abstraction of mind ; he continued 
to do all the talking, congratulating himself upon the 
result of the interview, and uj^on his own perspicuity in 
going off at once to the “fountain head,” as he persisted 
in calling Lady Forrester. She was rather a terrible 
old woman, certainly, but honest as the day, for all her 
sharp tongue and queer, ill-mannered ways. 

“ And she has got a heart, too, somewhere under the 
hard exterior,” continued Cecil, for he was so enchanted 
with what Lady Forrester had told them that he was 
ready to credit her with every virtue under the sun ; 
“ did you notice how reluctant she was to give up the 
other girl’s name? Nothing, I am sure, but a strong 
sense of duty would have made her speak the truth. 
Don’t you agree with me?” 

“ Y — yes,” assented Temple a little dubiously, and for 
the life of him he could not help adding, “ Do you think 
she was speaking the truth about Colonel Darley’s being 
in Ceylon?” 


— AND HAS TOLD THEM BADLY. 193 

“ Why, of course. Did she not offer to show us the 
letter? What more proof would you have?” 

“ I rather wish you had insisted upon seeing it.” 

“ Oh, that was all right ; I couldn’t have been so rude. 
Besides, after all, that is a very small matter, because we 
know now that the man had never anything to do with 
Nell. But, good Lord, what a caution that wretched 
Dottie must be! I shall take precious good care to 
keep her well out of Nell’s way, I can tell you. It is 
not for nothing, you see, that the county will have 
nothing to say to those girls ; there is ‘ no smoke with- 
out fire,’ as we all know. It is the elder ones, of course, 
who have done all the mischief, and my poor little inno- 
cent Nell is by force of circumstances included in the 
general condemnation. Ah, well, I shall take her right 
away from the whole lot of them before very long.” 

Here they came to Wigmore Street, and their ways 
necessarily lay asunder. Cecil had to go to Lincoln’s 
Inn, and Temple was returning to his rooms in Picca- 
dilly, so at the corner of the street they parted. 

Julian Temple had grudged leaving his work that 
morning, yet he was seemingly in no great hurry to get 
back to it, for instead of taking a hansom, as the young 
barrister did immediately, he continued to walk, and pro- 
ceeded down Bond Street at a very leisurely pace indeed. 

One horrible and damning thought possessed him, one 
memory that haunted his mind with a terrible significance. 

Nell had been on board a yacht. 

He remembered that he had asked her, and that she 
had answered, “ Once — a long time ago.” And then she 
had gone on to describe how the salt spray had dashed 
against her face, and how the swelling sails had bent to 
the breeze, and the sea-gulls had swirled on wide-spread 
wings around and above the flying vessel. In her own 
picturesque and graphic way she had described it all to 
him, so that he had seemed actually to see the scudding 
ship with all her white sails set, and the slender girl 
herself standing in the bows courting the driving wind 
with a glad exhilaration, her long hair floating wide, 
like a veil of gold behind her. 

He remembered that he had wondered vaguely at the 
time whose yacht she had been upon. 

I n 17 


194 


A BAD LOT. 


Now he knew. It was Yane Parley’s yacht. Oh ! if 
only Lady Forrester had not over-reached herself ; if 
only she had had the sense to lie enough, but not to lie 
too much. And then she had tripped again with regard 
to the letter from Ceylon. 

From beginning to end Julian felt convinced that her 
story was a fabrication. 

Yet not for one moment did he doubt Nell’s entire 
purity and innocence. It might all be true, every word 
of it. Yane Parley, fascinating blackguard that by all 
accounts it seemed he had been, might have gained 
some strange influence over her ; she might have been 
with him morning, noon and night; she might even 
have stayed with him, as it had been said, upon that 
yacht, and yet with it all, he was still convinced that she 
had been blameless; if she had committed an imprudence 
or an error, it had been the imprudence and the error 
of a thoughtless and ignorant child. He knew nothing 
of women, yet he knew this much at least, that those 
amongst them who are true and good bear that impress 
upon their brows and in the candid purity of their 
guileless eyes. The blackest of slanders, backed up by 
the most circumstantial evidence, would never have 
made Julian’s faith in Nell waver for one single hour. 

Yet he knew that it would not be so with Cecil Eos- 
coe. Full well did Julian understand his friend. All 
this present overflow of high spirits, this beaming satis- 
faction, this absolute exuberance of self-congratulation, 
was but the reaction after the deadly terror of the pre- 
vious agony he had endured, lest the story he had heard 
against her should be substantially true. 

In Cecil’s place, Julian would have forgiven her 
everything. Cecil, he well knew, would forgive her 
nothing. Julian would have married her before all the 
world, in spite of all. Cecil, if he were to find his sus- 
picions confirmed, would certainly rid himself of her as 
quickly as possible. It was no doubt because of the 
way he had been brought up, a narrow and conven- 
tional way, a way that culminated in Mrs. Torrens and 
her fixed proprieties, with which her nephew, although 
in a lesser degree, had been from his boyhood imbued 
and tainted. 


-^AND HAS TOLD THEM BADLY. 


195 


There are so many men — good men too — men who go 
to church, Sunday after Sunday, and confess themselves 
to be miserable sinners, who have gone astray like 
sheep, much as other men, in the days of their youth, 
yet who have settled down and righted themselves in 
the eyes of God and of man, who give of their sub- 
stance to the poor and needy, and who lead upright and 
honourable and altogether admirable Christian lives. 
And these are the men who are so hard upon women, 
and not only upon the women who are base and alto- 
gether vile, but upon the women who have lost caste for 
love’s sake, for whom they can see no excuse, and 
against whom they will close their doors in righteous 
indignation. 

Julian Temple knew Cecil to be one of these men, 
these good men of whom all the world speaks well. 

That was where the sympathy between them fell 
short and died away into nothingness ; that was why, 
although Cecil counted Temple as his dearest friend. 
Temple himself had no very strong attraction towards 
Cecil Roscoe. 

It was for Nell’s sake, not for Cecil’s, that the weight 
of this great overwhelming conviction was in these first 
moments a burden upon him almost too heavy to be 
borne. 

“If ho ever finds out the truth,” he said to himself 
with a groan, “ he will cast her off and break her heart ; 
he will have no mercy, make no allowances for her 
youth and ignorance ; he will think of himself, and of 
his name and his honour, of his women-folk, who will 
egg him on to reject her, of everything upon earth — 
save only of her.” Then presently, as he walked along 
Piccadilly with the morning sunshine in his eyes, he 
looked up to the clear pale blue of the winter sky and 
said to himself half aloud as he went : 

“ And, my God, how I could have loved that girl 1 
how I would have believed her and trusted her, and 
stood by her against all the world !” 

And then, as he turned his latchkey into his own 
door, he said to himself, once again, in a calmer, braver 
spirit : 

“But I can stand by her all the samej I can 


196 


A BAD LOT. 


strengthen his weakness as far as I am able, and above 
all, I can hold my tongue.” 


CHAPTEK XXI. 

IDA VINCENT IS DISAPPOINTED. 

Ida Yincent, having laid down the explosive and set 
light to the fuse, had waited in a perfect agony of 
suspense for the result of her experiment. 

Day after day she paid her little visits to her neigh- 
bours, going in with her book or her needlework to sit 
with the two ladies, always in the trembling expectation 
that she would hear something of importance, some- 
thing which she would have considered to be extremely 
to her own advantage. Yet day after day these expec- 
tations remained unrealized and nothing happened. 

She was unfortunately encompassed about by a veri- 
table chevaux de frise of proprieties and prejudices, so 
that she was totally unable to acquire the information 
she yearned for herself in any direct and open fashion. 
Thus, although it had been she who had set the inquiries 
going, she had never been allowed to know what was 
the exact nature of the accusation Mrs. Hartwood had 
made against Nell Forrester. It was something very 
shocking, too shocking in fact for her to hear; such 
things were not for the ears of well-brought-up, inno- 
cent-minded young women. Mrs. Hartwood had re- 
fused to disclose the terrible thing to her, although she 
had no objection in the cause of virtue and of duty to 
inform Mr. Eoscoe’s mother and aunt of the facts of the 
case. 

Miss Yincent knew that Mrs. Hartwood had done so, 
firstly, because she had herself introduced her into the 
ground-floor room in Mrs. Eoscoe’s house, where the two 
ladies sat awaiting her visit, and secondly, because, 
according to previous agreement, after the interview was 
over, she had handed a cheque of ten pounds to the 
painting mistress as a little douceur for her services. 


IDA VINCENT IS DISAPPOINTED. 


197 


But nothing would induce Mrs. Hartwood to give her 
the information she coveted, not even the bribe of an 
additional five-pound note. 

Mrs. Hartwood, indeed, affected to be highly offended • 
at this latter suggestion. 

“ Hot fifty pounds down, in hard cash, would tempt 
me to do what I believe to be wrong, Miss Vincent,” 
she exclaimed, in high and holy indignation. 

“I think you might tell me something,” grumbled 
Ida. “ You might give me an idea.” 

“ It would be impossible, my dear ; a good girl as you 
are would not even know the meaning of such wicked 
things as exist, alas, in the world.” 

Ida did not wish to deny that she was a good girl, but 
she took leave to doubt whether her comprehension of 
evil was quite so limited as Mrs. Hartwood seemed to 
suppose. 

“ She did something very wicked, then ?” 

“Very wicked indeed.” 

“ So wicked that it would be unwise for any sensible 
man to think of marrying her, you think?” 

“Most assuredly I think so. You may make your 
mind easy, Miss Vincent ; from Mr. Eoscoe’s manner, I 
feel convinced that he will not unite himself in the in- 
dissoluble bonds of holy matrimony to a young woman 
who has conducted herself as Miss Eleanor Forrester 
has done.” 

Yet the days went by and Ida heard no word of the 
engagement being terminated. 

Then at length she summoned up her courage and put 
a trembling question to Mrs. Torrens: 

“What had Mrs. Hartwood told them? Was any- 
thing going to be done about it ?” 

And Mrs. Torrens had shut her up even more 
resolutely and more firmly than Mrs. Hartwood had 
done. 

“ I cannot possibly discuss the question with you, Ida. 
It is not, I think, altogether discreet of you to inquire.” 

“ But, dearest Mrs. Torrens, I feel so very anxious ; 
dear Cecil’s happiness troubles me so deeply,” pleaded 
Ida. 

“ Cecil’s happiness, such as it is, remains unimpaired, 
17 * 


198 


A BAD LOT. 


my dear. I never imagined, myself, that it is likely to 
be of long duration; but that, apparently, is his own 
affair.” 

“You mean that the engagement is still going on?” 
she queried anxiously. 

“ It is still going on, I regret to say.” 

“ Then what Mrs. Hartwood told you had no effect 
at all?” 

“ Ida, I must request you not to allude to Mrs. Hart- 
wood’s information ; it is not a proper subject for you to 
mention. I don’t mind telling you this much once and 
for all : the woman meant well, I am quite certain, but 
she was misinformed; investigations have been insti- 
tuted by Cecil, and he has found out that she was 
entirely in error.” 

Hot a word more could she extract from Mrs. Torrens. 

A day or two later she was more successful with 
Cecil’s mother. 

Mrs. Eoscoe was to be alone one afternoon, and Ida 
persuaded her to come out for a drive in her carriage. 
Having got her to herself, she proceeded to question her 
judiciously and cautiously in much the same words that 
she had questioned Mrs. Torrens. 

She felt so uneasy about dear Cecil, she so feared 
everything was not quite satisfactory, she did so long to 
know that this engagement was likely to turn out 
happily. 

Mrs. Eoscoe, who loved her son, and who was also 
fond of Ida, was touched. 

“ Ah, my dear, thank you for your loving sympathy. 
Alas, I fear things are anything but satisfactory for my 
poor boy. I am sadly afraid that one day, when it is too 
late, he will awake to find out that he has made a terri- 
ble mistake. Oh, my dear girl, if Cecil could only have 
looked for happiness nearer home, where we should 
have all known that he would have been safe and free 
from all these dreadful doubts and misgivings.” 

“Dear Mrs. Eoscoe!” and the two ladies embraced 
each other tenderly and tearfully, for it was quite im- 
possible for Ida to pretend to ignore Mrs. Eoscoe’s 
meaning. 

“ You must not fret over that now,” she murmured 


IDA VINCENT IS DISAPPOINTED. 199 

soothingly, and Mrs. Roscoe wiped her eyes and said 
that she did try hard to be resigned. 

“ I did so hope, dear Mrs. Roscoe, that perhaps what 
that Mrs. Hart wood had to tell you ” 

“ Ah no, my dear, it turned out to be of no use to us. 
Of course I cannot tell you the story she related to us, 
because it would be most improper to speak of such 
things to a pure-minded girl. You would not under- 
stand, you would only be shocked and bewildered.” 

Oh ! why would they all persist in regarding her as 
such an immaculate image of virginal innocence? 
thought Ida frantically and savagely. She longed to 
call out, “ For goodness’ sake don’t be afraid of shocking 
me ; I know a great deal more than you give me credit 
for,” but as this remark would have been the height of 
imprudence and indiscretion, she only lowered her eye- 
lids bashfully and said nothing. 

“ Still I don’t mind telling you this much,” continued 
Mrs. Roscoe after a moment of hesitation. “ The story, 
such as it was, concerned not Hell, but her eldest sister. 
Of course to my mind it is just as terrible that my dear 
boy should marry into such a family^ a family, my dear 
Ida, that appear to be lost to all sense of decency and 
decorum ; but Cecil will not, unfortunately, look upon it 
in that light : he says he is going to marry Nell and not 
her sisters, and I really think that the whole business 
has only rendered him more infatuated than ever about 
her. It is very sad, Ida, and a great trouble to me, as 
you will imagine, but I strive to submit to the trial. I 
cannot quarrel with my only child, and although nothing 
will induce me to do anything at present to encourage 
him in his headstrong folly, yet if, as I fear is now una- 
voidable, she does actually become Cecil’s wife, I must 
put my own feelings on one side, and for my son’s sake 
do my duty to my daughter-in-law. Ah, well, do not 
let us speak of this miserable subject any longer, my 
love. Here we are at Marshall and Snellgrove’s ; would 
you like me to go in and help you to choose your new 
jacket, dear?” 

After that, Ida took occasion, on the earliest morning 
possible, to go up to Bloomsbury and pay a visit to the 
fan painter. 


200 


A BAD LOT. 


She came at a somewhat unfortunate moment. Mrs. 
Hartwood happened to be in the worst possible temper. 
Allan Salter was actually dying ; for several days past 
he had been unable to execute the orders she had given 
him, and which were due to be submitted for approba- 
tion this very afternoon. She had coaxed and scolded, 
entreated and threatened him in vain ; the poor dying 
boy could not speak for coughing ; he could only sit up 
in bed and struggle with those terrible gasping par- 
oxysms which tore and shook him from head to foot, 
and which seemed now and again as if they would 
choke him altogether. As to holding a pencil or tracing 
out a design, it was now quite certain that he would 
never be well enough in this world to do so again. In 
fact, a few hours, or at most a few days, were now too 
evidently all that were left to him on earth. 

Disgusted and miserable, Mrs. Hartwood had flung 
herself away from her helpless employe, and after bang- 
ing the door so violently behind her that it shook the 
whole of the poor bare attire from end to end, she 
rushed downstairs and abandoned herself to her rage 
and discomfiture. After awhile, realizing that she was 
now left entirely to her own resources for the future, 
she addressed herself to her hard fate with a courage 
born of despair ; and she was at the moment that Ida 
entered the room engaged in trying to work up two old 
sketches of Allan’s into one, in such a way that they 
might possibly pass muster as a new and original de- 
sign, putting in a figure out of one and a flower or a 
bird out of the other, outlining them with a chalk pencil 
and tracing paper upon the black satin before her. For 
both these pictures she had been well paid already, so 
that what she was engaged upon was as a matter of fact 
a forgery, but that did not sit at all heavily upon Mrs. 
Hartwood’s conscience. 

Yet, when Ida entered, she coloured somewhat guiltily 
and threw her painting cloth carelessly and hastily 
across her work. 

“Oh, good-morning. Miss Vincent, how are you? I 
am very busy to-day, and unfortunately almost blinded 
by a severe sick headache, which quite unfits me for 
doing my work.” 


IDA VINCENT IS DISAPPOINTED. 


201 


“ Poor dear, I am so sorry. I see you don’t want to be 
interrupted, but I have only run in for a minute, Mrs. 
Hart wood, just to tell you something.” 

“ Oh, I suppose the engagement is broken off, and the 
good-looking young barrister has returned to his first 
love. Well, my dear, I congratulate you heartily, and I 
hope you will never forget to whom you owe your 
happiness.” 

“ You needn’t be in a such hurry with your congratu- 
lations, Mrs. Hartwood ; if you would hear me out, you 
would find that I have not come about anything of the 
kind,” replied Ida, very red in the face and somewhat 
irritably; “as a matter of fact, the whole thing has 
failed.” 

“ What whole thing has failed ?” 

“ Why, your whole story, whatever it was ; it has 
turned out to be an entire mistake on your part, and I 
consider that you got that ten pounds out of me on 
false pretences,” added Ida. unpleasantly. 

“ An entire mistake !” repeated Mrs. Hartwood in an- 
gry amazement. “ False pretences! What on earth do 
you mean? Pray be careful. Miss Vincent, before you 
impute dishonesty to a person of my blameless life and 
character; such accusations come under the head of 
libels, remember.” 

“ I don’t say you did it on purpose, of course,” said 
Ida, feeling a little frightened ; “ but you ought to have 
been sure, before you told them, which sister it was who 
did this terrible and shocking thing you are all so 
careful to conceal from me.” 

“ Which sister ?” and Mrs. Hartwood sat bolt upright 
and stared at her visitor in astonishment. “I really 
must beg of you to explain yourself. Miss Vincent ; I do 
not at present grasp your meaning in the very least.” 

“ Oh, my meaning is clear enough. You told them it 
was Miss Eleanor Forrester who had done something 
disreputable, and now it turns out it was not her at all, 
but her eldest sister.” 

“But it was Eleanor; I saw her myself— with my 
own eyes,” persisted Mrs. Hartwood angrily. 

“ It seems you were mistaken, for all that, for they 
have made inquiries. I don’t blame you, of course ; you 


202 


A BAD LOT. 


tried to do me a good turn, I believe. I am sorry I 
spoke rudely about the money ; I did not mean to oifend 
you. Of course, it was only a mistake, but can’t you do 
any more for me, Mrs. Ilartwood ?” added Ida piteously, 
the tears coming into her eyes. 

Mrs. Hartwood took up her crayon in silence and 
went on with her outlining. 

“ No, I cannot do any more,” she said, rather sullenly, 
after a few minutes. “ You seem to think I am to in- 
vent things, in order to play into your hands. Miss Vin- 
cent. I am not a liar, thank God ; I am not so wicked 
as to go about fabricating evil stories of anybody. I 
only told what I knew from a sense of duty, and if 
these people refuse to believe me, why, what more do 
you suppose I can do? I can only speak the truth.” 

She was angry that her word should be doubted, and 
annoyed with Ida for the transparency of her game. 

“ She wants to make me a catspaw,” she thought. 
“ I am to have all the odium. of this business, and she is 
to play the innocent ingenue and reap all the advantage. 
Ten pounds won’t cover it.” 

At this moment she chanced to look up out of the 
window across the street. A gentleman was in the act 
of letting himself into the door of a house, 02)posite, 
with his latchkey. 

Mrs. Ilartwood remained looking at him thought- 
fully ; it was the third time she had observed the same 
gentleman go in and out of that house ; the first time 
she had not happened to look up in time to do more 
than see him disappear within the house; the second 
time he was coming out, but it had been nearly dark, so 
that she had not been able to distinguish him very well ; 
now she saw him distinctly. 

It was a lodging house ; there was a card in the fan- 
light window over the hall door, with “Furnished 
Apartments ” printed upon it ; almost every other house 
in that particular district seems to announce itself as 
belonging to the same category. 

“ It is he, sure enough,” said Mrs. Ilartwood to her- 
self, “ though what such a rich man can be doing up in 

’ ' ’ ‘ ’ J my comprehension ; he 



think. How old he has 


IDA VINCENT IS DISAPPOINTED. 


203 


grown, and how he has gone off in appearance ; there is 
some mystery in all this ; I must keep my eye upon my 
opposite neighbour.” 

Then, filled with a new idea, she turned to Ida again 
and said to her : 

“ It is quite impossible that I can go back and tell the 
same story over again ; you are very foolish to imagine 
that I can do so, Miss Vincent; but I tell you what I 
might be able to do some day : I might, perhaps, be able 
to supplement the information I have already given, so 
that Mr. Cecil Roscoe would have the opportunity of 
finding out for himself what sort of girl it is he is going 
to marry. If I should ever have the chance of doing 
this, would you like me to do so ?” 

“ Oh, dear Mrs. Hartwood, how kind you are ; how 
can I ever thank you enough ?” 

“ I don’t want thanks. I should only act, as before, 
from a strict sense of duty, as I have told you already, 
but, of course, if I incur any loss of my valuable time, 
and consequent loss of work, I shall expect to be indem- 
nified for it. Time is money. Miss Vincent, to a woman 
situated as I am, and I cannot promise even to take the 
smallest step in the matter unless I can feel certain that 
I shall not suffer any pecuniary loss. Beggars, alas, 
cannot be choosers, and charity,” added the lady, with a 
pious sigh, “ as we all know, begins at home.” 

And then Ida laid down another cheque, which she 
had brought with her, amongst the painting materials 
littered on the table, for she had had, at least, the sense 
to discover that Mrs. Hartwood, in some things so firm 
and invulnerable, had one weak spot in her armour, 
which could never be assailed in vain. 

The two cheques together made a considerable hole in 
her quarter s allowance, but Ida knew that one can’t 
have luxuries in this world without paying for them. 


204 


A BAD LOT. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

CHRISTMAS JOYS. 

The dark and dreary months of November and De- 
cember — short sad days of damp and mist, of rotting 
leaves and lowering skies — bad worn themselves away. 
Christmas — a wet, warm Christmas, this one — the sort 
of Christmas that, according to the old distich, “ maketh 
a fat churchyard ” — had come and gone. In Marshlands 
parish church, festoons of holly and of yew, of laurel 
and of ivy, had been duly wreathed around the pillars 
and the pulpit, and had as duly hung there until they 
had grown stale and smelt nasty, drooping limply and 
disconsolately in their places, unromantically displaying 
the string that contrived their being, and dropping a 
little shower of red and black berries down upon the 
pavement or the cushions of the pews below them, 
where they had been either sat upon by the worshippers 
or squashed under their feet, as the case might be. 
Then, by the time the sacred edifice had become well 
permeated by the nauseous and fever-breeding odours of 
decaying vegetable matter, the vicar had at length or- 
dered their removal ; and his parishioners breathed 
anew as they realized, with a deep sense of relief, that 
the blessed season with its time-honoured customs was 
drawing to a close. 

Christmas Day itself had been got over very satisfac- 
torily at Marshlands House. The bills had not yet 
begun to drop in with their customary punctuality — 
that was still a pleasure to come — so that Gordon For- 
rester’s peace of mind was as yet untroubled, and for 
the moment he had forgotten the Nemesis of future 
doom ; for he had the enviable faculty of living in the 
present moment, and of shutting his eyes to anything 
that was not thrust too conspicuously under his nose. 

As he sat at the head of his own table on Christmas 


CHRISTMAS JOYS. 205 

evening, one would not have imagined him to have a 
care in the world. 

Lady Forrester had supplied the usual turkey, and an 
old club acquaintance had opportunely sent him a small 
hamper of excellent champagne. He happened still to 
have a little money left from his last levy on his future 
son-in-law, and his daughters were all with him. What 
more could a man desire ? 

“ My dear children, and you, my friends,” he said, 
smiling bonignly to the right and left of him, “ it makes 
me very happy to see you all around me.” 

Cecil Roscoe was not there ; he had been authorita- 
tively claimed by his mother, a claim which Hell secretly 
thought he might very well have laid aside, but to 
which she had made no open objection ; she was getting 
accustomed to Cecil’s views upon his duty to his mother 
by this time, and she did not resent his absence very 
deeply, or perhaps it was only that she did not care over 
much whether he was present or absent. 

The family circle was, however, enlarged by the addi- 
tion of Captain Toulmin, who had been unable to get 
leave, and who, never a very lively person at any time, 
was for the nonce plunged into the deepest melancholy at 
the hardness of his fate; and also by Mr. Popham, 
whose own belongings bored him, and who had pur- 
posely remained at Fenchester over Christmas Day in 
order to escape the ordeal of a family gathering. 

“ If you had four maiden aunts, and sixteen nephews 
and nieces all under ten years of age, who all insisted on 
giving you wet kisses twice a day, you wouldn’t be in a 
hurry to find yourself in the bosom of your family, 
cither,” remarked Mr. Popham, as he took his seat con- 
tentedly at Dottie’s right hand. “I find it ever so 
much jollier here than at home. One can say what one 
likes without being afraid of setting everybody by the 
ears in this house ; and one is not bothered to dress for 
dinner or entreated to wipe one’s boots on the door mat. 
Cheer up, Toulmin ; you don’t know when you are well 
off, old fellow.” 

“ But nobody gives me wet kisses at home,’’ replied 
the mournful one dejectedly; “and I must say it’s 
beastly hard lines of the colonel to refuse me my leave 

18 


206 


A BAD LOT. 


when I told him I particularly wanted to go home for 
Christmas — not but what you are all very kind, Miss 
Forrester,” he added politely. 

“ Captain Toulmin is in love with his cousin Flor- 
ence,” remarked Millie remorselessly, and perhaps a 
little spitefully, for Dottie and Millie were charming to 
their admirers so long only as there was no rival in the 
field to lead them astray into the meshes of matrimony. 

“ Oh, Miss Millie !” cried the captain, blushing furi- 
ously. 

“ It is quite true ; you told me so yourself Why 
were you such a duffer as to tell me if you didn’t want 
me to repeat it? I always repeat things. She has got 
some money,” continued Millie, looking round the table 
amiably and blandly, ‘‘or else Tooley couldn’t marry 
her. He would have married me if I had had any 
money, he tells me. I’ve proposed to him several times, 
and he always gives me the same answer. So now he has 
to fall back on his cousin. It is very unfortunate — we are 
both of us blighted beings — still it can’t be helped.” 

“ You shouldn’t make fun of a fellow like that. Miss 
Millie,” murmured the unfortunate captain confusedly; 
but no one allowed him to nurse his melancholy — he 
was plied with champagne and made to join in the 
family jokes. They drank Nell’s health vociferously at 
dessert, with all sorts of details concerning the future 
prosperity of her married life, and with a ringing cheer 
in her honour led by Gordon Forrester himself, so that 
all the dogs instantly conceived it to be their bounden 
duty to chime in too, and the old room re-echoed with 
their noisy barkings ; and then Dottie jumped up from 
her place and ran round the table and flung her arms 
boisterously about her sister’s neck. 

“Dear little Nell,” she cried tearfully, “you won’t be 
with us next Christmas — not as you are now — you will 
be a married woman then — oh, how funny it seems to 
think of! — and your husband will be with us too then, 
I hope.” 

“He ought to have been with us now,” cried Mr. 
Forrester. “Fill your glasses once more and let us 
drink Cecil’s health too.” 

And of course Nell herself drank her lover’s health. 


CHRISTMAS JOYS. 


207 


But when she came to reflect upon the noise and the excite- 
ment about her — the loud hilarity of her family, which 
was perhaps in a measure owing to the unusual appearance 
of champagne bottles of an irreproachable brand upon the 
table — she said in her heart, not for the first time that day : 

“ I am very glad he is not here. He would not under- 
stand them in the least; he would only have looked 
solemn and disapproving, and it would have spoilt their 
enjoyment.” 

It was at this Christmas dinner that the Miss Forres- 
ters heard for the first time about that wonderful the- 
atrical entertainment to be given in January by the 
officers quartered in Fenchester, upon whose unforeseen 
consequences the inhabitants of Fenshire continue to 
dilate unto this day. 

It was to be an amateur burlesque, written expressly 
for the occasion, and was to be acted entirely by the 
officers and men themselves, the proceeds — if any — to 
go to the County Hospital. 

The Miss Forresters were naturally very full of in- 
terest and delight. Mr. Popham, who was upon the 
committee of management and who also expected to be 
one of the actors in the performance, was able to inform 
them that the first and most important step of all had 
already been taken — that of engaging the theatre in the 
town for the occasion. It had happened most fortu- 
nately that, between the tours of two provincial com- 
panies, the building had been entirely disengaged for 
three consecutive evenings; this would give them a 
dress rehearsal and two performances. The p.lay, which 
was entitled “Pyramus the Pirate,” was finished and 
put into print. The parts were very nearly cast; all 
in fact was in full swing of preparation already. Mr. 
Popham himself was to be a pirate — there were to be 
several of these gentlemen. The ladies’ parts were not 
yet arranged, but their mutual friend Drake, by reason 
of his smooth pink and white face and general qualifica^ 
tions, might very possibly be cast for the part of “ the 
savage queen, Fatyeupdea,” the heroine of the piece. 

“ Of course you must all come to the show,” added 
Mr. Popham. “ You must come the first evening, that 
will be the best ; the second night we intend to make 


208 


A BAD LOT. 


the prices lower and to have a larger pit in order to 
attract the townspeople and the farmers ; but at the first 
performance there will be quite a distinguished audi- 
ence. I expect there’s sure to be a tremendous rush for 
places directly we get the bills out next week. Will you 
have dress circles or stalls, sir? the dress circles are 
very good places.” 

“ Put me down for the best box in the house,” cried 
Gordon Forrester, flushed with wine and enthusiasm, 
and bringing his fist down upon the table in order to 
emphasize the magnificence of his generosity. “None 
of your dress circles, my boy ; the very best box, I tell 
you. Gad, sir, I was always a patron of the drama in 
my young days — acted in a farce myself once. It’s not 
likely, is it ? that I shall fail to patronize my friends in 
their noble efforts in the cause of charity. A hospital, 
my dear boy ; a hospital, I say, calls out the finest feel- 
ings of human nature. The best box, I tell you, and 
the second night. What’s that you say, Nell? cheaper, 
you say ? Oh, blow the expense ! Who is going to be 
economical at Christmas time, and when there is a hos- 
pital at stake? You reserve me the biggest box in the 
house, Popham, and, by Jove!” looking round the table 
triumphantly, “ if you doubt me, why. I’ll pay for it 
now!” and in the fervour of the moment Mr. Forrester 
actually pulled a small handful of sovereigns out of his 
waistcoat pocket. 

There was a moment of paralyzed silence, during 
which his daughters exchanged glances of positive 
terror. Was their father about to have a fit? When 
had he ever been known to offer ready money dowm in 
his life before? surely he must be going to be ill; but 
Popham, who had not lived in vain, was equal to the oc- 
casion ; he stretched forth his hand promptly, and closed 
his fingers deftly upon three of the golden sovereigns in 
his host’s open palm. 

“ That will do it, sir ; I’ll let you off the odd shillings 
for booking. Many thanks,” slipping the sovereigns 
securely into his own pocket. “ I’ll see to it ; you shall 
have the very best box in the house.” 

Gordon Forrester remained for half a-second open- 
mouthed and speechless ; it was j)erfectly horrible to him 


CHRISTMAS JOYS. 


209 


to be taken so literally at his word. He glanced blankly 
first at the quick-witted Popham and then back at the 
diminished store of coins in his hand; these he pro- 
ceeded to restore in double quick time to his pocket, 
then looking down the table a little shamefacedly he was 
heard to murmur apologetically to himself, “ Well, well, 
it’s Christmas time, and in the cause of charity, and,” 
with a little sigh of regret, “ it can’t be helped now.” 

Cecil came down to Marshlands for Hew Year’s Hay, 
and by the new year the epidemic of Christmas bills 
had set in with a rush, and Mr. Forrester was propor- 
tionally a wiser and a sadder man than he had been a 
week ago. For though harvests may fail and trade may 
languish ; though banks may break and business be at a 
standstill, yet never so long as the earth endureth shall 
this plague of the Christmas bill be minished or done 
away with. It is the one crop that never falls short ; 
the one certainty amongst all the changes and chances 
of this mortal life that can for ever be reckoned upon 
as unchangeable. 

There is a cruel relentlessness about this annual pesti- 
lence, for, be our Christmas sad or gay, dull or merry, 
are we glad as marriage bells, or mournful as death and 
sickness can render us, it makes no sort of difference to 
these our tormentors. They have no pity and no for- 
bearance; they may be expected to appear as confi- 
dently as green leaves in summer time. Scarcely has 
the old year died out in gloom and disappointment, and 
whilst yet his insolent young successor is holding out to 
us his usual fallacious prophecies and promises of new 
hope and new good fortune, than the pestilence is upon 
us in full and overwhelming fury, and the hopes and 
promises, God help us! are too often but a delusion 
and a fraud, whilst the bills are a bitter and tangible 
reality. 

They were never lacking at Marshlands House, as it 
will be easily imagined 

Cecil arrived at the moment when the storm of them 
was the fiercest, and suffered accordingly, both in his 
temper and in his pocket. In his temper, because he 
detested the extravagance and improvidence, and the ill 
management that almost amounted to dishonesty, which 
0 18 * 


210 


A BAD LOT. 


caused his future father-in-law to be so overwhelmed 
and so assailed ; and in his pocket because it was wholly 
impossible to him to sit by and do nothing to try and 
help him out of the quagmire of utter insolvency which 
threatened imminently to overwhelm him. 

“ When I am dead those words will be found written 
upon my heart, Cecil,” groaned Gordon Forrester with 
tragical intensity as he pointed to a pile of documents 
in front of him, most of them containing but three 
brief words, pregnant with his doom, “ To account 
render edT 

Cecil spent a whole morning shut up with his host in 
the library over those long files of bills and over certain 
lawyers’ letters which had supplemented many of them. 
Before he would do anything to help him, he insisted 
upon getting thoroughly to the bottom of the diflSieul- 
ties, and the more he went into them the deeper grew 
his disgust and the greater became his indignant con- 
demnation ; for to Cecil’s orderly and business-like 
mind the state of chaos into which Gordon Forrester’s 
affairs had drifted Tvas positively sinful. The money, of 
which there had been plenty at one time, had been 
literally frittered away ; years of improvidence had 
borne their natural fruit, utter neglect and sheer idle- 
ness often accounted for the absolute collapse of some 
of his investments, whilst a reckless extravagance or a 
totally uncalled for and spasmodic generosity had in in- 
numerable instances swept away large sums that should 
have been applied to the defraying of his debts. Every- 
thing was in the direst confusion ; he kept no accounts 
and his cheque book displayed nothing but blank coun- 
terfoils; his expenses were wholly unaccounted for; 
important items had been either inserted at random 
from memory, or else omitted altogether. It was a veri- 
table Augean stable which Cecil had set himself to work 
to investigate. It soon became clear to him that unless 
something were done, and that very speedily, to set him 
on his legs again, there was nothing for Gordon For- 
rester but the Bankruptcy Court. As this catastrophe ‘ 
would have been exceedingly unpleasant and humili- 
ating to himself on the eve of his marriage with Nell, 
Cecil came to the conclusion that for his own credit’s 


CHRISTMAS JOYS. 


211 


sake it would be absolutely necessary to him to avert 
this calamity until, at any rate, he had taken his wife 
safely away from the impending crash. 

He was not exactly j)repared — as Gordon Forrester 
really seemed to have some idea that he might be — to 
make a present of several thousand pounds to his father- 
in-law, but he suggested to him that he should make to 
him a loan of about £350 in order to meet the most 
pressing of the claims upon him, and to stave off for a 
time at least the impending ruin which threatened him. 
This money he proposed to raise himself on a certain 
security, which should take the form of a bill of sale 
upon the furniture of Marshlands House. This furni- 
ture, in point of fact, appeared to be the one and only 
possession which Gordon Forrester could lawfully call 
his own ; everything else that had ever belonged to him 
had been mortgaged long ago, and would be at the 
mercy of his creditors the moment the breath was out 
of his body. 

“ Of course, in the event of your death, sir,” said the 
young man, and Gordon looked very much upset ; he 
thought it extremely heartless and unfeeling to speak 
in such a casual fashion of so terrible a contingency; 
but Cecil was quite unaware of having hurt Mr. For- 
rester’s feelings, and went on calmly with his proposi- 
tion ; “In the event of your death a third of the furni- 
ture would come to me absolutely as my wife’s portion, 
whilst I should be willing to allow her sisters the use of 
the remainder upon the payment of the interest which 
would represent their shares.” Cecil himself considered 
this proposition an exceedingly fair and liberal one, but 
Gordon Forrester looked upon it as altogether brutal 
and unfeeling. 

“ In his place,” he thought, “I should have given him 
the money outright, and said no more about it. When 
I was a youngster and had a little money of my own, 
I used to be ready enough to give to a friend in need — 
gentlemen in my day didn’t take bills of sale on a 
friend’s tables and chairs, and mention his death in this 
heartless manner, or talk about the interest to be yjaid 
by his fatherless girls on a paltry two hundred pounds ! 
We left all that sort of thing to the Jews when I was a 


212 


A BAB LOT. 


young man. But, ah ! the world isn’t what it used to 
be ! They are a sordid lot, these young fellows of the 
present day — always keei)ing an eye open to the main 
chance. There isn’t a spark of real generosity or gen- 
tlemanlike feeling amongst them.” 

Which, considering that Cecil had already given him 
fifty pounds, and was offering to lend him three hun- 
dred and fifty more, and that he was, moreover, pre- 
pared to marry his daughter without a penny of her 
own in the world, was, to say the least of it, an exceed- 
ingly ungrateful train of thought. 

But as there was no other solution of the situation 
open to him, he was perforce compelled to accept the 
unwelcome terms held out to him, with as much out- 
ward show of gratitude as he could decently summon up. 

He was the more ready to agree to anything and 
everything, because after an hour and a half of it, he 
was beginning to be thoroughly bored with the whole 
subject. Moreover, a faint winter sunshine had strug- 
gled out over the flat country, and the wide flooded 
fields far away glittered and shone under its beams like 
a network of distant lakes. Gordon Forrester, who 
had perhaps something of his daughter Hell’s love of 
the country and of country pursuits, thought it would 
be vastly more amusing to go out with his gun over his 
shoulder and his old pointer bitch Haney at his heels, 
and see if he could not pick up a plover or so on the 
farther side of the wide and swollen lake. 

“ Money, money !” he groaned at last. “ I am sick to 
death of it all. Do exactly as you like, Cecil ; I’ll sign 
anything. A quiet life is all I ask ; it ain’t much to 
want, is it ? Look at the sunshine out yonder — that is 
much better for one to dwell upon than all this pother 
and fuss. For God’s sake, let us get out! Go and find 
Hell and do a bit of spooning, my boy, for a change.” 

But somehow the “spooning,” as Gordon irreverently 
termed it, fell rather flat after that morning spent in 
her father’s library. 

Cecil was preoccupied and annoyed. Although 
nothing had been said to that effect, he felt instinc- 
tively that Hell’s father had not received his overtures 
in a friendly or grateful spirit, and he resented his lack 


THE FIRST ACT. 


213 


of appreciation of the ctforts he was prepared to make 
on his behalf. Nell, who knew nothing about it, was 
vaguely hurt and estranged by his unaccountable cold- 
ness and abstraction of manner, and she also, on the 
occasion of this visit, became aware of a total change 
in his manner towards her sisters. Hitherto he had 
treated them both with a kind and perfectly good- 
humoured toleration, and although Nell was well aware 
that their fast noisiness was not at all to his tastet yet 
she had given him credit for the friendly and thoroughly 
fraternal attitude which he had always maintained 
towards them. Now he seemed all at once to be 
scarcely able to tolerate their presence. To Dottie more 
especially he exhibited such an unconcealable aversion 
that it almost amounted to positive incivility. 

Dottie herself was not at all slow to perceive this 
unpleasant change in his manner. 

“ What has come to your young man, Nell?” she said 
to her sister when they went up to bed that night. 
“ What have I done to offend him, pray?” 

“I am sure I don’t know, Dottie,” faltered Nell. 
“ What makes you ask ?” 

“ Why, he hasn’t spoken three words to me since he 
has been in the house. He almost turns his back on me 
if I say anything, and just now, when I went to wish 
him good-night, he pretended not to see my outstretched 
hand and went on with his book. I think it is down- 
right rude.” 

So did Nell, but she was totally unable to give any 
reason for his behaviour. 


CHAPTEE XXIII. 

THE FIRST ACT. 

The original amateur burlesque, expressly written 
and composed for the occasion by Captains Lenny and 
Barker, of Her Majesty’s 110th Foot, and entitled 
“ Py ramus the Pirate,” as advertised in large posters all 


214 


A BAD LOT. 


over the town and county, was to be performed for the 
first time at the Theatre Eoyal, High Street, Fenchester, 
on Thursday, the 20th of January. 

Long before the eventful day arrived expectation was 
on tiptoe and speculation had run riot amongst both 
high and low concerning it. Nothing so exciting and 
so novel had occurred in this sleepy and dead-alive 
eastern corner of the world for many yetirs back. They 
had diad balls, of course, and they had had agricultural 
shows and tennis tournaments. They had also had the- 
atrical companies of more or less fame and merit in their 
midst, and of course they had had concerts, lectures 
and conjurors’ shows galore. But an amateur theatrical 
performance, given the military contingent in the 
town theatre — not an invitation aflair to the gentry 
only, but a bond fide public entertainment, at which 
every man, woman and child might be present by pay- 
ing for their places — was an entire and most refreshing 
novelty. 

By the time the day of the first performance arrived 
every available seat in the little theatre had been booked 
and secured, an extra row of stalls had to be added, and 
cane chairs had been placed down the gangways, in 
every space and corner where a cane chair could possi- 
bly be crammed in, and it had been agreed to make no 
reduction of prices for the second night. The burlesque 
promised, in fact, to be a gigantic success — financially, 
at any rate ; and even the hospital authorities, who had 
not hoped for very much at the outset, began to feel 
mildly excited over the prospects of that surplus which 
was to find its way eventually into the cofi’ers of the 
institution. Already, in view of the growing impor- 
tance of the proceedings, some of the original views of 
the committee had become considerably expanded and 
enlarged. The ladies’ parts, for instance, were no longer 
to be at the mercy of the subalterns of the various 
depots, but were to be filled by professional actresses 
from London, and a qualified stage manager had been 
engaged, who, it was hoped, would introduce into the 
proceedings a tone and a finish unattainable to unaided 
amateur efforts. The dresses also had been ordered 
from a London costumier and were rumoured to be of 


THE FIRST ACT. 


215 


the most original and even startling description, whilst 
certain members of the company who were to dance in 
solos or in combination had on several occasions gone 
lip to town in order to be carefully drilled and trained 
by a professional instructor in the art of stage gyra- 
tions. All these things had leaked out, as of course 
they were bound to do, through the different friends and 
acquaintances of the officers and soldiers who were to 
take part in the performance, and served to keep antici- 
pation at its highest. Amongst other details it was said 
that the major of the 200th was to dance a hornpipe, 
and that Messrs. Popham and Drake, of the 110th, 
would be seen in a “ flying duet,” which, for activity, 
grotesque comedy and wild rapidity of movement, 
would, it was rumoured, be totally unprecedented in the 
annals of amateur terpsichorean efforts. 

Nobody but the privates and non-commissioned offi- 
cers and their wives and children, who were admitted 
gratis, were allowed to be present at the dress rehearsal, 
but the most highly-coloured reports of an extraordinary 
success and of the talent displayed eked out through 
this possibly partial audience on the following morning, 
and enhanced the eagerness with which every one else 
was looking forward to the entertainment. 

The long-looked for evening of the 20th came at last, 
and long before the curtain went up the little provincial 
playhouse was packed and crammed from the floor up 
to its topmost gallery. As had been anticipated, the 
county magnates had risen to the occasion in force, the 
dress circle, as well as the boxes and the stalls, being 
well filled by the cream of Fenshire society. A large 
double box to the right was occupied by the party from 
Eedstoke Castle and their friends. The Stanfords of 
Towsett Hall occupied another opposite to it, whilst the 
party from Finely, having been somewhat late in apply- 
ing for places, had been obliged to content themselves 
with eight stalls in the very last row, next to the pit. 
There were the dean and his daughter and the canons and 
the minor canons from the Close, and there were all the 
little people, too, as well as the great ones — the bankers, 
their wives and daughters, the doctor and the solicitor, 
the veterinary surgeon and the proprietor of the George 


216 


A BAD LOT. 


Hotel. There were also the country clergy from their 
vicarages, with their wives and families — in short, there 
was hardly a familiar face from town or country that 
was not to be seen at that memorable and truly repre- 
sentative gathering. It created some little surprise and 
interest amongst all these people when the large stage 
box on the lower tier, that had remained for some time 
unoccupied, was suddenly filled by Mr. Gordon Forrester, 
of Marshlands, accompanied by his three daughters. 

Mr. Forrester, in irreproachable dress clothes and a 
white waistcoat, was radiant. He wmved his hand 
across the house to Lord Eedstoke and bowed low to 
her cold, proud ladyship. Then he scanned the faces 
of the crowd in the stalls through his long-unused opera- 
glasses, and nodded and smiled with some ostentation at 
those amongst them with whom he had always had a 
slight acquaintance, or who had latterly taken him 
slightly into favour by reason of his daughter’s engage- 
ment. He was perfectly happy to-night, for his difficul- 
ties had been tided over for the present without any 
exertion on his part. The creditors and the duns and 
the lawyers who threatened writs and executions had 
been temporarily silenced — in short, as he put it himself 
with pathetic earnestness, “The wicked have ceased 
from troubling, and the weary are consequently at rest.” 

Dottie and Millie leaned well forward over the edge 
of the box and stared about them boldly and without any 
inconvenient shyness in either voice or attitude. They 
hardly knew anybody present, it is true, save by sight, 
excepting the non-acting officers who were scattered 
about amongst the audience, but they made the most of 
the greetings they sent across the house to these, and as 
they had both rigged themselves out in new white 
dresses trimmed with scarlet ribbons for the occasion, 
they did not see in the least why they should hide their 
light under a bushel. Lottie’s voice, in fact, that was 
never a very gentle one, and was apt to be raised uncon- 
sciously in moments of excitement and exultation, rang 
out quite audibly and clearly all over the theatre, in a 
way which concentrated the amused or scandalized at- 
tention of numerous opera glasses upon the box. As foi- 
Nell, she sat far back in her corner and hoped that 


TEE FIRST ACT. 


217 


nobody would see her. Cecil had not come down for 
the occasion ; he had promised her that he would do so, 
but just as they sat down to dinner a telegram had been 
put into her hand to say that he was prevented from 
leaving town by business. ^N'ell handed the telegram 
round the table, and everybody said it was a great pity ; 
Nell said nothing at all. 

In the depths of her heart she was haunted by the 
humiliating conviction that Cecil did not want to bo 
seen in a public place with her family. 

“ He is ashamed of us,” she thought ; “ he never in- 
tended to come ; I was certain of it from the first ; ho 
could have come if he liked ; the telegram is nothing 
but an excuse.” And as she leant back in the box her 
heart swelled a little hotly and angrily within her at the 
thought, and instinctively she sided with her own flesh 
and blood against him. Why should he be ashamed of 
her father and sisters? He knew well enough what 
they were before he came amongst them, and if he had 
disliked them all so much, why had he come to Marsh- 
lands for a wife ? And Nell told herself resolutely that 
Cecil should never separate her from her own belong- 
ings ; for was it not mainly for their sakes that she was 
marrying him ? She would stand by them always — 
always. 

Then the curtain went up and a deafening round of 
applause greeted the first scene, which represented a 
desert island in the Pacific Ocean, upon which the story 
began. Nell bent forward with the rest to look, and far 
away in the last row of the stalls some one who sat 
amongst the party from Hinely Hall caught a glimpse 
of that gold-crowned head as it shone for a moment 
under the light of the gas. It was all that he had come 
for — just to see her afar off, and without being seen him- 
self. She did not see him, her eyes were riveted upon 
the stage. Her sisters made room for her to sit between 
them, iind she leant forward eagerly and delightedly. 
Nell had only been once in her life before to a theatre in 
London, and she was young and full of capacity for enjoy- 
ment. She left off thinking about Cecil — she forgot him, 
in fact, altogether — and she threw herself heartily and 
with keen appreciation into what was going on on the 
K 19 


218 


A BAD LOT. 


Btage. The burlesque went very well : there was plenty 
of incident and plenty of fun in it ; comic dances and 
comic scenes succeeded each other rapidly, and there 
were a great many comic songs, the words of which had 
been written expressly for the occasion, and which con- 
tained numberless allusions to local politics and persons, 
all proving highly diverting to the audience ; roars of 
laughter and vociferous encores greeted each stage of 
the performance, and Nell laughed and applauded with 
the rest, and thought it all very amusing and delightful. 
The first act culminated in the grand finale of the “ Fly- 
ing Duet” between Messrs. Popham and Drake, with 
a chorus of savages and pirates in the background. 
Three times were these energetic young gentlemen re- 
called amidst the deafening plaudits of the audience, 
and compelled to give an encore of this highly successful 
and truly wonderful exploit. How they skipped and 
how they jumped! how wildly and dexterously their 
long legs in black trunk hose whirled above each other’s 
heads, and with what amazing rapidity they pursued 
one another in flying leaps and bounds and pirouettes 
backwards and forwards across the stage. It was really 
astonishing, as everybody said, how two such quiet- 
mannered and unassuming-looking young fellows as 
they were known to be in their private capacity should 
have, in so short a titne, developed such an extraordinary 
and hitherto wholly unsuspected talent. Where could 
they have learnt it ? the puzzled and delighted audience 
asked of one another ; how, in six weeks or so, could 
the}^ possibly have attained to such almost professional 
excellence? It was truly wonderful, and nobody was 
more astonished or laughed more heartily than the 
colonel of the 110th himself, who roared and shouted 
till the tears ran down his fat red cheeks, and who 
clapped his hands till he split his white gloves^ that 
were several sizes too small for him, right across the 
middle of the backs. 

So the first act came to a triumphant and glorious 
conclusion, and even when the curtain had finally fallen 
the audience went on shouting and screaming itself 
hoarse, and refused to be silenced until Poppet and 
Ducky had come forward in front of it, panting and 


THE FIRST ACT. 219 

smiling and bowing their grateful acknowledgments for 
the reception accorded to them. 

“They are the heroes of the evening,” cried Dottie 
excitedly, as she sprang to her feet. “ Come along, girls ; 
you know we are to go behind the scenes between the 
acts ; Poppet made me promise ; here’s Tooley come to 
fetch us. Why, he is actually laughing ; wonders will 
never cease. Come on, Gordie ; of course you’ll come 
with us, and, Nell, put on your cloak quickly, child. 
You don’t mean to say you aren’t coming? VVhy, it 
will be the best fun of the whole evening; they have 
got light refreshments in Ducky’s room; only just a 
select few — ourselves and some of the boys — are invited. 
Oh, don’t be a little goose, Nell; come out and have a 
cup of tea, at any rate.” 

“I had really rather not, Dottie. I had sooner sit 
quiet ; it is so hot, and I have a headache.” 

“ Silly little mouse,” said Dottie indulgently. 

“ Oh, don’t press her if she had sooner sulk alone,” 
remarked Millie rather crossly. 

“ Take care not to sit in the draught of the door, my 
love,” said her father kindly ; “ there is a wind comes in 
under that door enough to cut one’s feet olf.” 

And then they all went otf noisily together, escorted 
by Captain Toulmin, and Nell was left by herself. 

She came a little to the front of the box, so that her 
fair head and the pure outlines of her profile were quite 
visible to the occupants of the stalls below, and she sat 
very quietly by herself, not looking about amongst the 
people in the house, of whom she knew but very few 
indeed, save by sight only, but amusing herself by looking 
over the words of the songs in the programme. 

Intervals between the acts in an amateur performance 
are wont to be unusually long, but surely no interval 
ever prolonged itself so unduly as this one. Ten, fif- 
teen, twenty minutes went by, and still there came no 
sign or token of a renewal of the play. Nobody, how- 
ever, seemed to care, or even to notice what a long time 
it was — everybody was employed in talking to every- 
body else, for every one present was in the midst of 
friends; the stall holders were leaning back towards 
the seats behind, or stretching forwards over to those in 


220 


A BAD LOT. 


front ; the dress circles Tvere calling out their greetings 
and criticisms to the boxes, or to those below them ; the 
boxes were crowded with visitors from different parts of 
the house, and a hum and buzz of conversation and 
laughter went on all round. Only Nell sat on quite 
alone by herself. 

She was possibly the first person in the whole of the 
crowded theatre to whom it occurred that the interval 
of waiting was protracting itself to most abnormal 
length. She began to wonder whether the scenery had 
gone wrong, or if Miss Sybellina Montmorency, adver- 
tised as “ the lovely love-lorn daughter of Pyramus the 
pirate,” had lost her temper or her voice, and whether 
there had arisen any difiiculty about her coming to the 
front with the rising of the curtain, as Nell knew she 
was meant to do, with a solo in her well-known best 
music-hall manner. Some hitch or other there surely 
must be in the proceedings, she thought; but why 
on earth did not her father and the girls come back to 
the box? They could not be eating cakes and drinking 
tea all this time ; they must be dreadfully in the way 
amongst the actors. 

Yet still the minutes slipped away and they did not 
return ; neither did the curtain go up. 

The music of the interlude — it was, of course, a mili- 
tary band, stationed between the front row of the stalls 
and the footlights — had ceased to play ; the musicians had 
exhausted all their repertoire^ and had even repeated some 
part of it. Now they were all sitting mum and silent, 
with their flutes and fifes and drums in their hands. 

Then all at once it struck Nell that something unusual 
was going on behind the close-drawn curtain of the 
stage. There was certainly a disturbance of some kind 
or other , there were footsteps hurrying backwards and 
forwards, and voices, not hushed and subdued as would 
have been natural, but loud and agitated ; a female voice 
was raised in something that distinctly resembled a 
scream; then came a confusion of cries and noises, 
shouts and directions, arising all together in a babel of 
mingling voices, and above and over them all there came 
a dull low ominous roar, like the breaking of storm- 
waves upon a shingly shore. 


THE FIRST ACT. 


221 


Simultaneously, the whole of the waiting and patient 
audience became shaken with some new emotion — as a 
forest is suddenly shaken by a blast of wind ; the gay 
chattering voices were silenced; a shivering whisper 
went round, and here and there a sharp question or a 
terrified exclamation arose. Then men sprang up in 
their places and asked loudly what was wrong ; women 
cried out or turned faint, and clung to one another, 
clutching frantically at their cloaks and wraps ; and all 
at once the curtain moved aside, and the stage manager, 
very pale and with disordered hair and dress, stepped 
out alone before the footlights. 

“ Ladies and gentlemen,” he called out in a loud, clear 
voice, “ pray keep your seats and do not get frightened. 
I entreat you to take your time, and to go out as quietly 
and orderly as possible.” 

“What is it? What is wrong?” came in a yell from 
a hundred terrified voices. 

The stage manager never answered that question. 

The answer to it came of itself, and with a deadly 
and overwhelming certainty. 

From the side of the flies nearest to the stage box 
where Nell Forrester was sitting alone, there crept out 
slowly and stealthily a long thin brownish grey wisp of 
smoke, that curled its way softly and tortuously upwards 
towards the great gas chandelier that hung from the 
painted ceiling. Then, immediately following it, a swift 
fine jet of quivering flame shot out sharp and clear as a 
serpent’s tongue. 

Then, once again, the smoke. 

To all whom it concerned to know — and it concerned 
them all — the truth was as patent as daylight. 

The theatre was on fire I 


19 * 


222 


A BAD LOT. 


CHAPTEE XXIY. 

ACT THE SECOND. 

Eeader, have you ever been in a panic ? If you have 
not, thank your God that you have not witnessed one of 
the most horrible sights that this world can exhibit, and 
continue to pray to your life’s end that you may be 
spared the appalling experience. 

For a panic is, perhaps, the most terrible of all those 
many dire calamities which at divers times and seasons 
are wont to wreak their vengeance upon a doomed and 
misguided humanity. 

There are perils of the winds and perils of the sea ; 
there are perils of earthquakes and perils of flood and 
of fire — yet all these are natural agencies ; the forces of 
nature in active rebellion against the laws that govern 
and restrain them. What is so terrible about a panic is 
that it is entirely the work of man himself — the dis- 
torted nightmare of his own imagination ; the fictitious 
creation of that maddening, soul- benumbing passion, to 
which we give the name of Fear. 

And if to fire — fire that is of itself so tremendous a 
power — a power with which all the science and all the 
wit on earth has as yet been but feebly able to cope — if 
to fire there be superadded the panic of human fear, 
then, indeed, the situation is a desperate one. 

Inside the Theatre Eoyal at Fenchester that twofold 
horror of fire and of panic had now broken loose in all 
its terrible reality. In vain had the pale and trembling 
stage manager entreated the audience not to lose its 
self-control and its presence of mind ; to take its time 
and to go out quietly and without undue haste. That 
curling wreath of smoke, that keen swift-shooting 
tongue of flame, had been enough to scatter all his wise 
and prudent counsels to the winds. The occupants of 
the stalls indeed had made a vigorous etfort to act upon 
his advice ; there were shouts from the seats below to 


ACT THE SECOND. 


223 


those above and behind, shouts of “ keep your seats,” 
‘‘ sit still,” “ don’t crush out but their words of com- 
mand and entreaty might as well have been spoken 
to the waves of the sea. The pit and galleries were 
past all sense and reason, and the awful crush of 
human beings, each one struggling for his own life and 
regardless of the life of others, began in all its hideous 
intensity. 

If they had taken it quietly at first there would in all 
probability have been plenty of time and to spare for all 
to have got out in safety ; but the demon of panic had 
got its grip upon them, and they were beyond the reach 
of argument or appeal. 

In a dense mass of struggling, fighting humanity, the 
seething crowd rushed madly and frantically towards 
the different exits of the theatre. These exits, all of 
them narrow doorways, leading down tortuous and ill- 
constructed stone staircases, became in a few seconds 
the scenes of the most horrible and heart-rending ca- 
tastrophes. Women and children, and even strong men, 
were pushed down and fell one on the top of the other, 
and were trampled upon and crushed to death under the 
feet of the on-rushing tide. Above the roar of the 
flames behind, fearful screams and groans and curses 
rent the air, and the pale terrified faces, bruised and 
stained with blood of those who either kept their foot- 
ing or were carried on helplessly by the crushing of 
those behind them, testified sufficiently to the hopeless 
horror of that human stampede, whose end is too often 
a cruel and dreadful death. 

And all the time the fire increased and strengthened 
its hold upon the stage, pouring forth great volumes of 
dense black smoke, lit up now and again by the lurid 
gleam of the flames into the body of the house. 

It was an awful sight — a sight to haunt the whole 
after life of those who saw it, and to leave its impression 
stamped for ever upon the memory. 

IS’ell stood up in the box and looked at it. She was 
pale as death, and a wild horror was in her eyes. She 
did not think of her own danger, or of how she herself 
was to escape; she was not frightened for herself, 
because the thought of her own peril had not yet come 


224 


A BAD LOT. 


home to her — all she saw was that maddened fighting 
crowd ; all she heard were those heart-piercing shrieks 
of the dying and the wounded ; the shrieking of faint- 
ing women, who stumbled and fell, never to rise any 
more; the wail of little children in their last agony. 

Oh, could nobody do any good ? could nobody arrest 
and save them? She reached out her hands towards 
the upper gallery, where that most terrible tragedy was 
at its worst, and she, too, cried out with some of those 
below, “ Oh, stop, stop ! Come back 1 Oh, God, save 
them, save them !” 

But no one heard her. 

Meanwhile, her own danger increased at every instant. 
It was some part of the scenery at the back of the stage 
that had first caught fire, and the box she was in being 
next to the stage was now in imminent peril. The chok- 
ing smoke that overwhelmed and blinded her awoke her 
suddenly to a sense of her own danger. Thick waves 
of smoke now tilled the whole centre of the theatre, so 
that the terrible scenes beyond it became mercifully 
blotted out, and she could only hear the screams and the 
cries and the heartrending groans afar off. 

All at once she saw that the fire had come very close 
to her ; the heat had become intense ; the smoke was so 
thick as to suffocate her. At first she had said to her- 
self, “They will come back for me — some of them. I 
had better stay where I am. One of the men is certain 
to come and tell me what to do.” But after a little 
while — it seemed, indeed, a whole eternity, although it 
could have been barely six or seven minutes — she began 
to realize that it might he impossible for any one of her 
party to return to her. They had all been behind the 
scenes. It was obvious that they must have effected 
their escape from the building by the stage-door, and as 
the fire had broken out on that side, they would cer- 
tainly have been cut off from the rest of the theatre. 

Then Nell realized that if she desired to escape from 
an awful and cruel death, she had no one but herself to 
depend upon. She must save herself or perish. 

She groped her way to the back of the box and found 
her cloak, wrapped it hastily about her bare shoulders, 
and having with difficulty discovered the small handle 


ACT THE SECOND. 


225 


of the door, she opened it. Immediately opposite to her 
was a staircase, and the whole of the passage was 
thronged by a dense mass of struggling human beings, 
all striving and straining and fighting hand and foot to 
get to the head of the stairs. 

Faint and sick, Nell shut to the door and shrank back 
into the box again — to venture alone into that crowd 
would be to cast herself to the almost certainty of a 
horrible death. It were better to perish of the smoke 
and of the flames than to be trampled to death beneath 
the feet of that maddened multitude. For the first time 
it came home to her that there was perhaps nothing 
before her but death. 

She leant against the partition of the box and trem- 
bled, and a death-like faintness overpowered her for an 
instant. Yet she was brave even then. She pulled her- 
self together with a tremendous effort, and struggled 
through the blinding smoke back to the front of the 
box again. It might be possible to escape that way. 

“ I will not die like a rat in a trap if I can help it,” 
she said to herself aloud, and the sound of her own 
voice gave her courage ; but the outlook on this side was 
not hopeful. The fire had spread, a portion of the roof 
above the stage was now in flames, a shower of sparks 
driven forward by the draught flew out into the now 
deserted stalls; the front row of seats was already 
charred and smouldering, great tongues of flame curled 
upwards towards the gas chandelier that hung from the 
centre of the roof. When they reached the gas-pipes it 
was self-evident that there must be a terrific explosion, 
and that the whole roof of the theatre would collapse, 
and she herself, if still alive, must be buried beneath a 
mountain of burning ruins. Before that dreadful 
moment came, and it could not now be many minutes 
longer before it did, could she by any means clamber 
over the edge of the box into the stalls below and get 
out by another exit ? or was it already too late to escape 
that way ? She began to experience the suffocation of 
which so many victims mercifully die in a fire before 
the flames have time to reach them. She struggled for 
breath and staggered blindly as she tried to get on to 
the edge of the box. Once she half climbed over, but a 
P 


226 


A BAD LOT. 


dash of black vapour and of fiery hot sparks belched up 
suddenly into her face from some burning woodwork 
below and cast her back half-stunned and stifled uj^on 
the floor of the box. 

In a few seconds she lay there helpless and almost in- 
sensible, and she said to herself, “ This is death,” and 
prayed that her agony might be short. 

Then out of the darkness and suffocation, above the 
deafening noises and the wild swift flashes of lurid 
light, a voice close to her spoke her name — close — quite 
close to her. 

“ Nell, are you there ? Are you alive ?” 

Some one stumbled across her fallen body — life came 
back to her fainting heart with a wild keen rush of joy. 

“ Yes — yes, I am here ; I am alive !” she cried, strug- 
gling to lift herself; and he took her up into his arms 
and lifted her on to her feet. 

“Thank God! I was afraid I was too late.” In the 
light of the flames she saw his pale face — smoke-grimed 
and stained with blood. It did not occur to her to won- 
der that he was there, or how he came ; it was enough 
for her that he was with her. 

“ I had to go out first with one of the ladies of the 
Dinely party,” explained Temple hurriedly. “ We got 
them all out safely, and then I came back for you. I 
have had hard work to reach you. Nell, can’t we get 
out at the back ?” 

He went to the door of the box as she had done, and 
then, as she had done also, he shut it to again quickly 
— that awful battlefield of raging, demented dying 
humanity was still pouring down the tortuous passage 
and flinging itself headlong down the narrow stairway. 
It seemed hopeless to escape that way. He came back 
and looked out over the box by the way he had come, 
but alas, even in those few short moments the fire had 
spread ; there were but a few yards now between the 
licking flames and the tottering gas chandelier in the 
roof; and when that was reached all hope would be 
over. He looked back at her blankly and miserably. 

“ Is it death, Julian ?” she asked him softly. 

He took her hands in his and crushed them hard 
against his breast. All pretence was at an end now. If 


ACT THE SECOND. 


227 


it was death indeed for both, then in death she belonged 
to him. All the small things of this world fade and 
pale into nothingness to those who stand thus face to 
face with death. 

“ 1 don’t care much now that you are with me,” said 
Nell brokenly. 

“There is only one hope, Nell,” he answered, and his 
voice was rough and harsh with the agony within him. 
“ If 1 can get you out along that passage, past the crush 
at the top of the staircase, I think there should be a 
window ” 

“ Oh, not through that awful crowd,” she said, shud- 
dering and drawing back. 

“ I will carry you. I swear you shall not fall,” he 
urged. “ For God’s sake trust yourself to mo, Nell! It 
is our one chance ; there is nothing else ; it is too late to 
go back the way I came. I implore you to be brave and 
to trust me. Nell,” and there came a break in his voice, 
“ I will be honest with you. I don’t think that wo shall 
live through it. I believe we shall meet our death out 
there.” He laid his hands one on each of her shoulders 
and held her a little away from him, looking into her 
eyes with an intensity of love and of despair. 

“ I will not deceive you, dear ; I cannot deceive my- 
self. I will try to save you, but I doubt whether I can. 
And, Nell, before we go out there, to meet — only God 
knows what — there is something I want to tell you — 
something I do not want you — to die without knowing. 
It cannot injure any one now that you should know it 
— it cannot hurt you any more. It is only that I love 
you. I have never loved any one else — you are the first 
— you will be the last ; will it not help you a little to 
trust me? You understand now that I shall do all I 
can to save you, don’t you ? And if we die ” 

“Then at least we die together, Julian,” she cried, 
with a sudden passionate intensity. He had said, “ 1 
love you.” Even in that hour of despair nothing could 
quench the joy that the words brought to her. Death 
became robbed of half its terrors. Neither the fear of 
the pain nor yet the natural shrinking of the body from 
a horrible and cruel fate could blot out or dull the un- 
speakable sweetness of those words as they rang in her 


228 


A BAD LOT. 


ears. “ At least we can die together,” she repeated bro- 
kenly once more. 

And then silently he took her in his arms and held 
her against his heart, whilst her soft arms stole up to 
encircle his bent head ; and their lips met once in a long, 
long kiss, in which there was not very much, perhaps, 
of human passion, but in which there lay all the sad 
solemnity of a dying farewell. For to these two — lovers 
in heart if not in name— it seemed indeed as though 
they were standing together upon the threshold of eter- 
nity, and as though only a brief interval of bodily 
agony lay betwixt them and that great mystery of 
silence into which each of us must go down alone. 

In the world that they were leaving behind there 
could be nothing that signified any more to them ; only 
the love that was beyond all hope, and the death that 
they were going forth to meet together — all else was 
over and done with. 

Then, without another word — for there was no time 
to be lost now — he covered her head up completely in 
her thick cloak, and lifting her in his arms, carried her 
out of the door into that seething, yelling crowd outside. 

He was big and strong, and ho was struggling for a 
life that was dearer to him than his own, or else perhaps 
ho would never have got her through ; for a few 
moments indeed he had an awful battle, during which 
he believed that all was lost. He had hard work to 
keep his footing, and the rough buffeting of the human 
tempest almost tore her from his arms. But he set his 
back against the wall, and in this way he was able to 
stand firm, and presently he began to gain inch by inch 
against the dense struggling mass, and then mercifully 
— almost by a miracle — all at once the crowed seemed to 
thin and lessen, and what he had to contend with next 
was no longer the panic-stricken people, but the thick 
volumes of fire-laden smoke which began to pour from 
behind him in ever-increasing strength and density along 
the low-ceiled, narrow passage. 

Before that stifiing, choking vapour even the strongest 
of men must in the end give w^ay. Julian looked down once 
at Hell’s face — her cloak had fallen a little back in the 
struggle. Her light figure seemed suddenly to grow 


DAYS OF CALM. 


229 


heavier in his arms ; he saw that she was white as 
death ; her eyes were closed — she did not appear even 
to breathe — she was insensible — perhaps indeed she was 
already dead ! 

The thought that it might be so filled him with unut- 
terable despair, yet still he struggled on towards the 
window that was now close in front of him. But he 
had come at last to that point when a man can do no 
more — breath and sight and strength, life itself failed 
him. Suffocated and scorched, bruised and maimed, he 
stumbled on for a step or two farther, till at last he fell 
forward heavily in a senseless heap upon the floor, 
beneath the window that he had struggled so hard to 
r6ach, with Nell’s unconscious form still clasped tightly 
in his arms. 

And there the firemen who, a few seconds later, came 
swarming up the ladders and in through that very win- 
dow, found them both, locked in each other’s arm, and 
almost past human help. 


CHAPTER XXY. 

DAYS OF CALM. 

True to the old adage, March, that had come in like a 
lion, was now, in its last days, going out like a lamb. The 
blue sky was dappled with fleecy clouds, the sun shone 
with a keen clear brightness ; along the garden borders 
the crocuses and snow-drops and daffodils stood in long 
gay lines of flower, every lilac bush along the shrubbery 
walk was covered with little pale-green spiky buds, 
whilst the big chestnut tree on the lawn was already 
bursting into leaf. High up out of sight, a lark sang 
loudly and shrilly against the blue, and there was a 
breath of the coming summer in the soft air that swept 
from the south across the tender shadowy green of the 
wide flat country. 

A sofa had been wheeled into the open window, and 
upon it lay Nell Fon*ester, propped up with cushions at 
her back and with a warm quilt across her feet. She 

20 


230 


A BAD LOT. 


had been very ill, after that dreadful night of the fire at 
the theatre ; but now she was not ill any longer, only 
white as the snowdrops in the garden outside, and so 
weak and thin that it almost seemed as though the gentle 
breeze must blow her away like a broken fioweret. 

She did not seem able to get up her strength, and yet 
there was nothing the matter with her now. She had 
not been hurt in any way on that terrible day ; she was 
not even scorched or bruised when the firemen had 
picked her up, and the doctor attributed her subsequent 
illness, which was of the nature of brain fever, solely to 
the shock to the system which she had sustained. Her 
nerves had been in a state of utter prostration for a long 
while afterwards, and even now Doctor Baines told her 
that they had not recovered as he had hoped and ex- 
pected. 

Nell laughed at him a little wearily, and assured him 
that she had never had any nerves. Yet, although she 
took all his tonics and mixtures obediently, she did not 
seem to get any stronger. It was always the same thing, 
an intolerable and invincible weakness, nothing else, till 
Doctor Baines was fairly troubled and puzzled about her, 
and could not make out the cause of it at all. Perhaps 
Nell herself knew better than he did, but if so, she said 
nothing. 

“ Ye ry likely she may get stronger after she is mar- 
ried,” said the doctor one day ; “ something should be 
done to rouse her ; let us get her married as soon as pos- 
sible, and the change and excitement will very likely do 
more for her than any medicine.” He said it to Cecil, 
and Cecil fixed the wedding-day promptly for the tenth 
of April, the Wednesday after Easter Sunday. 

And now it was only a fortnight more to the tenth of 
April. Everybody cheered up and felt better when the 
great day was settled ; only the bride-elect herself seemed 
to take no earthly interest in the impending event. 

She left all the arrangements to her sisters, smiling 
acquiescently and faintly, with a far-away look in her 
eyes, when she was consulted. Even her trousseau^ that 
crowning excitement and joy of a woman’s existence, did 
not suffice to rouse her out of her apathy and indiffer- 
ence. 


DAYS OF CALM. 


231 


“ You can do as you like,” she would say to them, and 
Dottie and Millie had a fine time of it, going up to town 
and ordering and choosing the new clothes, and sending 
in the bills duly to their grandmother. 

The time came at last when it was absolutely neces- 
sary that Nell should go for a few days to London her- 
self, to be fitted with numerous garments that could not 
be possibly finished off until she had tried them on. 
Doctor Baines gave it as his opinion that she was per- 
fectly able to go, and that the effort of going would do 
her good. He said that she wanted rousing, physically 
and mentally ; that her London visit would help her to 
shake off some of her invalid habits ; but H ell, who seemed 
to cling a good deal to her own people in these days, 
pleaded at least that Dottie should go with her. 

Dottie came in through the open window from the 
garden with some open letters in her hands. She had 
been down to the lodge gate to meet the postman. 

“ It is all right, Nell. Granny says I may come with 
you, and we are to go to town to-morrow ; it’s very good 
of Granny to let me come.” 

“ Yes, Dottie ; I don’t know how I could possibly get 
on without you, you have been so good to me,” and 
Nell’s eyes filled with those easy tears which are the re- 
sult of weakness. In the old days no one ever saw Nell 
cry. 

“ Look here, old girl, you must cheer up,” said Dottie, 
in her rough, kind way ; “ I have got a surprise for you. 
Who do you think I met at the gate, carrying his bag 
up from the station ? Some one you will be very pleased 
to see, I expect.” 

For one wild moment the blood rushed in a fiame to 
her face, and her heart beat quickly and tumultuously, 
then the colour died down as suddenly, leaving her paler 
than before. 

What a foolish and impossible fancy! How stupid 
she must be to think of such a thing ! 

“ I suppose it is Cecil,” she said very quietly and with- 
out the least enthusiasm. 

“ Yes, it is Cecil. He has managed to get away for 
one night, he says, and he will see you safely up to town 
to-morrow. I didn’t dare to tell him I was going too ; 


232 


A BAD LOT. 


he’ll be furious, I expect. Your young man isn’t over 
civil to us, my dearj he doesn’t think any of us good 
enough for him but 3 ’' 0 u.” 

“ It is only his way,” said Nell, a little absently. 
“ Where is he ?” 

“ He has taken his bag up to his room. I must go and 
see cook, for we’ve absolutely nothing but gammon of 
bacon in the house, and I had ordered it to be boiled for 
lunch with cabbage. 1 can just see Cecil turning that 
boiled bacon and greens over with his fork, with a look 
of awful disgust on his face and the end of his nose going 
up into the air. it is a dreadful thing to have to feed 
a dainty man ! 1 pity you, Nell. However, there’s one 

thing, j^ou’ll have plenty of money to feed him on. Don’t 
you think, too, I had better wire to Poppet not to come ? 
Cecil is so rude to him, it makes me hot ; in fact, he is 
much too high and mighty for any of us now-a-days.” 

“ I shouldn’t make any difference for Cecil,” said Nell 
languidly, laying her head back against her cushions ; 
“ he must take us as we are when he comes down like 
this.” 

Dottie went away across the garden towards the 
kitchen door, and the next minute Cecil came into the 
room behind her. 

She did not look particularly delighted to see him, but 
she smiled and held out her hand, and he bent down and 
kissed her forehead; he would perhaps have kissed her 
in a more lover-like fashion, only that Nell twisted her 
head away out of his reach, with an almost instinctive 
shrinking, and his kiss fell upon the soft brown curls 
upon her brow. 

“ I thought I would come down and take you up to 
Wimpole Street myself to-morrow, Nell. I don’t like 
your travelling alone.” 

“ Thank you, Cecil. Dottie is going up with me,” she 
added, after a moment’s pause. 

Cecil’s face clouded instantly. “ Dottie,” he repeated, 
“ why is she going?” 

“1 asked grandmamma to invite her too; 1 cannot 
get on without her.” 

Cecil made no answer. Ho was annoyed, for ho had 
begun to hate Dottie, and he disliked her being with 


DAYS OF CALM. 


233 


Kell. Yet he felt that until Kell actually became his 
'syife, it was impossible to prevent the two sisters being 
together; besides, she had nursed Kell devotedly since 
she had been ill ; he supposed that even the worst women 
must have some good points about them. 

“When Kell is my wife I shall put my foot down 
about Dottie,” he thought. “ It is not for long now, 
although certainly I would very much rather she were 
not seen with her in London ; and my mother, who 
knows what Dottie is, will be sure to make a fuss about 
it.” 

“ You see I am not very strong,” continued Kell apolo- 
getically, divining his objection, although she could not 
understand it ; “ Dottie will go about with me and help 
me. She enjoys it all so much too, poor dear.” 

“ I could have gone about with you, Kell.” 

“ Oh, not to the dressmaker’s exactlj”, Cecil. One 
wants a woman for that,” said Kell with a laugh. 

Cecil looked gloomy. Something had annoyed him 
already to-day, and, man like, he was not given to hiding 
his annoyances when there was some one handy to 
inflict them upon. 

“ It is too bad of Temple,” he exclaimed, suddenly 
pulling some letters out of his pocket; “he wants now 
to back out of being my best man, of being at our wed- 
ding at all, in fact. He writes from Culverdale ; says 
his brother wants him to stop there for another three 
weeks, that he cannot get away in time for the tenth of 
April. Such rot ! I don’t believe a word of it ; it’s just 
an excuse. I know he hates weddings and never goes 
to them if he can possibly avoid it; but I do think ho 
might have stretched a point to come back to town for 
mine, especially as it has been an understood thing all 
along that he was to be my best man. I shall have to 
get little Drake after all now, unless I can make old 
Julian change his mind. Kell!” his eyes resting sud- 
denly upon her face, “ how awfully white you look ; do 
you feel ill ?” 

“ Only a little faint,” she murmured. She had been 
pale enough before, but now her face had become of a 
livid grey colour that frightened him. 

“ The air is too much for you,” he said, getting up and 
20 * 


234 


A BAD LOT. 


shutting the window, and then he gave her a salts bottle 
that stood near her on a table, and stood anxiously 
watching her whilst she sniffed it. 

“It is nothing,” said Nell, presently; “I am. often a 
little faint. I feel better now. What was it you were 
telling me — about Mr. Temple ?” 

“ Only that he says he can’t come to our wedding. 
But I am thinking, Nell, that he might perhaps be in- 
duced to come if you were to write him a line yourself 
and ask him.” 

“ I !” cried Nell, with a quick frightened glance and a 
sudden flush that flooded her face from brow to chin. 
“ Oh, no, I couldn’t — I couldn’t !” 

“ Oh, you needn’t look so scared. Old Temple isn’t 
really alarming at all when you know him, 1 assure 
you,” laughed Cecil carelessly ; “ at least he is not to 
men, although I have been told that women do some- 
times stand in awe of him. Little Ida Vincent told me 
once she was frightened to death of him, he snubs her 
so ; but you ! why, he liked you very much, I know ; he 
told me that he did. I really think if you were to write 
him a pretty little note ” 

“ Pray don’t ask me, Cecil ; I am — not clever at little 
notes, and if he does not want to come it would do no 
good, I am sure.” 

She seemed so distressed and troubled at the idea that 
he gave it up with a little laugh. 

“ Oh, well, you shall not be tormented to do anything 
you don’t like now you are seedy, dear ; I must try what 
I can do myself to persuade him to change his mind ; it 
is really beastly selfish of him to throw me over in this 
way. Here comes your father,” he added in an altered 
voice, as Gordon Forrester entered the room. 

“ Ah, my dear Cecil, this is an unexpected pleasure ; 
and how do you find our dear invalid ? Progressing 
nicely, aren’t we ? I am really delighted to see you to- 
day, for I have just one or two little matters of business 
I want to discuss with you, my dear boy, if you will 
come into my room for a minute.” 

“ I am entirely at your orders, sir,” replied Cecil 
somewhat sullenly. From repeated experiences Cecil 
was beginning to understand that Gordon Forrester’s 


DATS OF CALM. 


235 


little matters of business” usually portended more duns, 
more difficulties, and more appeals for help. He fol- 
lowed his future father-in-law unwillingly enough out 
of the room. 

When they were gone Nell lay for some moments 
very still indeed upon her sofa, her wide-opened eyes 
were fixed miserably and almost despairingly upon the 
pale cloud-flecked blue of the March sky. 

Presently she raised herself and sat up on her sofa, 
twisting her feet down to the floor. Out of the bosom 
of her dress she drew a small creased and soiled scrap of 
a note that looked as though it had been folded and re- 
folded many and many a time. She opened it now care- 
fully, almost reverently, and although she knew every 
word of it already by heart, she read it once more. 

There was no beginning to it and no signature, and it 
was not a very long letter. 

“ You will know as well as I do that I must not see 
you again, and you will surely understand. Forgive, if 
you can, the wild words I spoke to you in that hour of 
despair — although I can never forgive myself for the 
double burden that 1 have so cruelly laid upon you. 
Yet if it should be any comfort to you to remember it 
in the days to come, believe me at least that it was true 
enough what I said to you. There will never be any 
one else in the whole world for me but you, Nell, but 
you I must not meet again. In the face of death, I had 
perhaps a right to claim you, but life, alas! divides us 
once more, fatally and for ever. Try to forget me, and 
God bless you always. Good-bye.” 

Nell sat on staring hopelessly and miserably at the 
well-known words ; the hot tears gathered in her sor- 
rowful eyes and rolled down heavily and slowly one by 
one upon her hands; some of them dropped with a 
splash upon the open letter, they were not the first that 
had fallen upon it. 

Presently she folded it up, and returned it to its place 
with a deep sigh. 

“ It is all over 1” she said half aloud. “ He leaves me 
to my fate, he has abandoned me 1” 


236 


A BAD LOT. 


For that thing called honour, which to Julian Temple 
was so stupendous and so real, seemed to Nell Forrester 
to be but a very small matter compared with the love 
that was eating out her heart. 

Love in a woman’s dictionary must always override 
everything else ; it is to her the best, the greatest, the 
noblest thing, in life ; and she cannot even in fancy enter 
into that masculine code which exalts something else 
above it. The honour which made Julian Temple turn 
his back upon his friend’s betrothed wife, even although 
he knew that she loved him, seemed to Nell only the 
hollow and almost ridiculous exaltation of a senseless and 
cruel fetish. 

She realized now that up to this moment, in the depths 
of her weak woman’s heart, she must still have hoped 
and looked forward to something — she hardly knew 
what — that should bring him back to her. “If I can 
only see him and speak to him,” she had said to herself, 
“ I know that I could overcome his scruples ; I could 
make him see things from my point of view, and not 
from his.” She had reckoned upon her own personal 
influence to upset his decision. It had not indeed oc- 
curred to her to write to him, and she had never an- 
swered that tear-blotted note, for she knew that written 
words would be of no avail, but if she could have seen 
him — just once more — if she might have looked into his 
eyes 

But even that last hope was now taken from her. She 
saw that he meant to avoid her altogether ; he would not 
see her if he could help it, either now or on her wedding 
day. 

If it was indeed right to leave her to her fate, then no 
doubt it was right of him to refuse to be present. But 
this last necessity seemed to make everything doubly 
hard for her, it seemed to close the door for ever between 
them. He would not apparently give her even his friend- 
ship. 

There had been a time, just after the fire, and after 
she had recovered her health sufficiently to think and 
look back and to remember all that had passed between 
them, when she had fought and rebelled against her fate ; 
when she had told herself that, loving Julian Temple 


DArS OF CALM. 237 

and knowing that be loved her, she would not, could not, 
marry Cecil Roscoe. 

But that was before his letter had come to her. After 
that, she began to realize that Julian would not stand 
by her or help her, that he took it as a matter of course 
that she belonged to Cecil, and that he himself must 
stand aside and let things go on exactly as before, and 
then Nell’s courage fell and all her brave resolutions died 
away. 

What good would it do if she were to quarrel with 
Cecil ? Would it bring Julian any nearer to her? And 
then, moreover, she understood by this time that her 
father must be very much in Cecil’s debt, and the prac- 
tical side of her nature told her that if she broke off her 
engagement it would be a very serious matter to him. 
Then there were her sisters : what a terrible disappoints 
ment to Dottie and to Millie it would be if her engage- 
ment fell through. What a downfall of all their hopes 
of future enjoyment at her expense ! 

All along, Nell’s chief inducement to marry Cecil had 
been the thought of the advantages which her marriage 
would bring to her sisters. She was so sorry for them 
both, so conscious of their faults of character and of the 
shortcomings in their manners and ways, and of the dis- 
advantages that had always stood in their light, and she 
was earnestly anxious to make things better for them in 
the future. She had often pictured to herself the pleas- 
ure it would be to her to have them with her in London, 
especially Dottie, who was her favourite. She told her- 
self that she would invite men to her house, friends of 
Cecil, to meet Dottie, who might very possibly be at- 
tracted by her sterling qualities, by her warm heart and 
her unfailing good temper and her frank and honest im- 
pulsiveness. Nell, who saw all these good qualities in 
her favourite sister, was sure that there must be men in 
the world who would recognize them as she did. And 
Dottie was handsome still, she reflected; with new 
clothes which she would provide for her, and a little 
London smartening up, Dottie might be made to look 
very nice indeed, and what an excellent wife she would 
make I 

So common-sense won the day, and she silenced those 


238 


A BAB LOT. 


clamouring voices at her heart that had urged her for a 
brief moment to deem that the world would be well lost 
for the sake of a man who had told her in so many 
words that he had no intention of ever seeing her again, 
and who recommended her to do her duty to Cecil and 
to forget all about himself. 

Cecil was kind and affectionate to her in these days, 
her weakness rendered him more than usually tender 
to her ; if he treated her family with ill-concealed aver- 
sion, and aroused Dottie’s wrath by his supercilious 
coldness to herself, he was at any rate quite sufficiently 
attentive to Nell to warrant her in believing what was 
indeed the truth, that he was sincerely attached to her. 

She did not wish to make him unhappy or to behave 
badly to him, and she wished very much to do her duty 
to her family and to bring some brightness into the lives 
of her father and sisters. 

And so she held her tongue and the wedding day drew 
nearer and nearer, and sometimes it seemed almost a. 
dream to her that Julian Temple had ever spoken to her 
those magic words — “ 1 love you.” 


CHAPTEE XXYI. 

THE OUTBREAK OP THE STORM. 

The doctor’s prophecy that Nell would be all the bet- 
ter for the exertion of the visit to London was amply 
fulfilled. She had not been twenty-four hours in town 
before she was another creature. It was not, perhaps, 
that she was any happier, or that the shadow upon her 
life was less dark, but, in the change of air and scene, 
her bodily strength improved, and in the necessity for 
action and the constant rush of occupation, she had no 
time any longer to brood over her troubles. Moreover, 
she was essentially a woman with all a woman’s weak- 
nesses, and womanly women can never divest themselves 
entirely of the purely feminine instincts of shopping, 
and of the love of new clothes. What faint reviving 


THE OUTBREAK OF THE STORM. 


239 


interest she had secretly felt of late in these matters, 
was now stimulated and fanned into life, not only by 
Dottie, who was a veritable whirlwind of excitement 
and energy, but also by her grandmother; for Lady 
Forrester, having generously olfered to pay for her trous- 
seau., was not at all minded to allow the important sub- 
ject to be treated either with levity or indifference. 

When it came to the trying on of the wedding- 
dress, Lady Forrester actually accompanied her grand- 
daughter herself to the dressmaker’s, in order to give 
her opinion and advice upon the all-important garment. 

The amusement and the interest of it all served to dis- 
tract Nell’s mind, and restored her in a great measure 
to her old bright and sweet self. She told herself over 
and over again that she had no right to be depressed 
and unhappy, that she was marrying Cecil of her own 
free will, and that nothing between him and her was in 
anyway changed or altered since the day she had prom- 
ised to be his wife. 

In fact, in one respect, her position was decidedly im- 
proved, for Mrs. Roscoe had been very distinctly kinder 
to her than on the occasion of her previous visit to Lon- 
don. She had lunched alone in Rutland Gate, and her 
future* mother-in-law, in the absence — the intentional 
absence, no doubt — of Mrs. Torrens, had kissed her 
affectionately, and had manifested a keen and motherly 
interest in the details of her gowns. 

Mrs. Roscoe, feeling perhaps that the marriage was 
now inevitable, had promised her son to be present at 
his wedding, and it was settled that she and he were to 
stay together at the George Hotel at Fenchester, for the 
night of the ninth of April. Nell having been warned 
that it would be wiser not to risk a refusal, had re- 
frained from inviting her to stay at Marshlands, and had 
acquiesced without demur in the arrangement. She was 
learning to be wise with regard to her future mother-in- 
law, and for Cecifs sake to pass by in silence many 
things which hurt and wounded her. 

“She will come round in time, after we are married,” 
Cecil said to her, “ if you will only be patient.” 

So although Mrs. Roscoe offended her constantly by 
her persistent avoidance of her relations, by the marked 


240 


A BAD LOT. 


way in which she declined to set foot inside her grand- 
mother’s house, and by her almost insulting manner of 
ignoring Dottie altogether, looking straight in front of 
her whenever Nell mentioned her sister’s name, as 
though she had not heard her speak, yet she consented 
to swallow these affronts in silence, for the sake of the 
future peace and harmony which Cecil so constantly 
held out to her. 

“After all it is only a stupid prejudice,” she thought, 
“and it cannot hurt my people, or prevent me from lov- 
ing them just the same.” 

The house in Wimpole Street was kept in these days 
in a constant state of most unwonted turmoil. The 
door was besieged by parcels and packages, and Dawkes 
had an unpleasantly lively time of it, running up and 
down the kitchen staircase with a frequency eminently 
trying to his cramped and aged bones. There came 
young women with mysterious boxes and cases, trades- 
men’s carts with parcels, and messengers with wedding 
presents; these latter almost entirely from Cecil’s 
friends, for Nell had few friends to give her anything. 
There was a constant coming and going all day long, 
hansom cabs that took the girls backwards and forwards 
on their shopping expeditions, or that brought Mr. 
Roscoe on his daily visits to his betrothed. The quiet 
and dull old house was, in fact, completely transmogri- 
fied, and the servants were almost trotted off their legs. 

Nell was standing one morning in the little back 
sitting-room behind the dining-room. It was here that, 
according to Lady Forrester’s orders, all the parcels that 
came for her were deposited, and here also that she 
interviewed the young persons from the milliners or the 
dressmakers, who came to her with patterns or with 
messages. 

Yet, in spite of all that was constantly going on in it, 
with strangers coming in and out, with cardboard boxes 
piled upon the table, and parcels of all sorts and sizes 
heaped upon the chairs, Nell, every time she went into 
it, could never help thinking of it, as she remembered it 
long ago. She could not get over certain old reminis- 
cences which were for ever associated in her mind with 
this dark little back room. There was the same dreary 


THE OUTBREAK OF THE STORM. 


241 


outlook on to the rain-stained blank wall of the narrow 
yard outside, the gloomy and almost indistinguishable 
'Oil paintings facing the window, the shabby books on 
the book shelves, the cheap imitation bronze vases 
which still kept their places upon the mantelpiece ; all 
these were unchanged, and all brought back vividly to 
her memory a certain scene out of her past life, and 
with it a vague renewal of those feelings and emotions 
which had left so deep an impression upon her after life 
and character. She remembered so well all that had 
happened on that morning long ago ; the shock that had 
been almost like a physical blow, and the stunning sen- 
sation of utter despair that had paralyzed her when 
Yane Darley had spoken the one word which had turned 
her from a loving trustful child into a woman who un- 
derstood that she had been deceived and cheated. 

She could see herself now, standing there — just there, 
between the table and the fireplace, as she asked her 
breathless little question, the answer to which was to 
determine her whole life. 

“ Is it true ?” she had said to him, and then came his 
answer, striking into her heart like the thrust of a sharp 
knife : “ Yes.” 

Nell could almost feel the pain of it now ; to this very 
day she shivered when she thought of that yes^ and of 
what it had meant to her. 

To most of us there comes, one day or other, that mo- 
ment of cruel awakening, that downfall of our ideal that 
is so bitter and so hard to bear ; but surely it had come 
soon, far too soon, to Nell Forrester. 

For in this dreary little back room a good deal of 
what had been best and purest in the girl, had been 
either destroyed altogether or disastrously mutilated. 
She had never, for instance, recovered that beautiful 
belief in the goodness of others which is the birthright 
of us all, which comes to us in childhood and early youth 
with a natural and inherent spontaneity, and which once 
broken and shattered can never return to us any more. 

Truth appeared to her now to be only a beautiful and 
perhaps unattainable theory, honour a foolish pretence, 
and love itself but a poor thing, scarcely worth the mis- 
ery and the disappointment that so often go hand in 
L 7 21 


242 


A BAD LOT. 


hand with it. And it was Yane Darley who was re- 
sponsible for all this perversion of feeling ! 

It is the hardest lesson which life can teach us, and 
iS'ell had learnt it over early. 

Even now, although it was so long ago, and her life 
had shaped itself afresh, she suffered still in her thoughts 
and in her nature for that long gone by experience. 

“ I suppose they are all very much alike,”’ she was 
thinking as she stood by the table unpacking some old 
Derby tea cups and saucers that had just arrived from one 
of Cecil’s numerous London acquaintances. “ A woman 
is only of value to a man so long as she conduces to his 
own happiness or comfort ; love does not mean to men 
what it does to us: truth above all things and stead- 
fastness as well. I ought to know, for Yane Darley gave 
me a lesson I can never forget. And now once more it 
is brought home to me: Julian Temple forsakes me like 
a coward, and I have no doubt that dear good prudent 
Cecil, if the occasion came for him to exhibit a whole- 
some regard for his own interests, would prove himself 
to be entirely oblivious of minel Women ought always 
to be prepared to be sacrificed in the end to the selfish 
instincts of the men who profess to love them. The 
greatest folly of it all is to set one’s heart too much upon 
them. Perhaps it is a good thing for my chances of 
future happiness that 1 have never cared very much for 
Cecil, and yet I think on the whole that he is fond of 
me, and that he will be good and kind to me, although 
who can say, until ho has been tried, how far his affection 
may be reliable ?” 

“ A note for you, miss,” said the housemaid, putting 
her head in at the door. 

“Put it down, please,” said Nell, without turning her 
head, and the girl laid it upon the edge of the crowded 
table. “ Is Miss Forrester in yet?” 

“ No, miss, but there goes the bell again ; perhaps that 
may be her,” and she hurried away to answer the door. 

The next moment Nell heard Cecil’s voice in the hall. 
Just before he came in she took up the letter that lay on 
the table. 

The handwriting on the envelope was unknown to her, 
and when she came to look at it closely there was some- 


THE OUTBREAK OF THE STORM. 


243 


thing peculiar about it ; it seemed as though it had been 
addressed originally in faint pencil lines and then traced 
over in ink by a somewhat uneducated hand. At this 
moment Cecil entered the room. She turned to smile a 
greeting to her lover, and as she did so she slipped the 
letter unopened into her pocket and forgot it altogether. 

Cecil was full of news. There had been a good deal 
of talk lately concerning the future habitation of the 
young couple, and it had been settled that they were to 
take “ something furnished” for the season, and so give 
themselves time to look about for a permanent abode. 

Cecil had come to say that he had just seen a furnished 
flat in the neighborhood of Albert Gate, which seemed 
to him to suit their requirements exactly. He had an 
hour to spare : would Hell come to see it now — at once? 

Hell professed herself ready and eager; she ran up- 
stairs to put on her jacket and hat. Lady Forrester 
was confined to her room with a bad headache, so there 
was no one’s leave to ask. 

She came down very quickly, and Cecil, who was wait- 
ing for her in the hall, thought as she ran down the stair- 
case towards him that he had never seen her look more 
charming. She seemed in better health and spirits alto- 
gether. There was a little flush on her cheeks and her 
eyes shone and sparkled with all their old brilliancy ; he 
felt both fond of her and proud of her. 

He had kept the hansom that had brought him, and 
they started off together to inspect the flat. 

Of the details of that altogether delightful and com- 
modious flat there is no occasion to dwell ; Hell retained 
no recollection of it afterwards whatever, although at the 
time she went carefully into every room and examined 
every corner and every cupboard with the utmost atten- 
tion and interest. 

When they came out Cecil proposed that they should 
walk across the corner of the park as far as Park Lane, 
when he would put her into a cab and find his own way 
to Lincoln’s Inn. 

“It won’t be too much for you, will it?” he inquired 
anxiously. 

“ Oh, no, the walk will do me good. I am ever so 
much stronger than I was, Cecil ; in fact, I am quite well 


244 


A BAD LOT. 


again now, such a day as this makes one forget all one’s 
aches and pains. How delightful the air is; how fresh, 
how sweet your London can be sometimes, Cecil,” she 
exclaimed with enthusiasm. 

They had stopped for a moment at the end of the Ser- 
pentine. It was a lovely morning, the miniature wave- 
lets sparkled and glittered in the sunshine, the trees that 
bordered the wide artificial lake on either side had robed 
themselves in their first pale mantle of filmy greenery, 
and the stone bridge that spanned the water far away 
stood out white and clear against the darker shades of 
the wooded slopes of the Kensington Gardens beyond. A 
couple of bright-plumaged ducks rose with a sudden splash 
and skimmed across the water, some toy yachts with 
white and red-brown sails flitted noiselessly from shore 
to shore, whilst in the foreground a couple of lovers in 
a boat chattered in lowered tones to each other, he a 
rough young follow with an honest face, who sat resting 
his sculls upon the surface, and she hatless and rosy, 
merry brown eyes and dishevelled locks that fluttered 
behind her in the breeze. 

It was a scene that is homely and familiar enough to 
every Londoner, and yet even to the eyes that have 
grown accustomed to it, that view up the long water of 
the Serpentine has always a certain indefinable attrac- 
tion of its own. To Kell’s imaginative and appreciative 
mind there was a curious and subtle charm about this 
calm and peaceful landscape set into the midst of the 
roar and din of a great city. These misty distances and 
tender outlines of tree and shadowy water, as contrasted 
with the turmoil of the busy life hard by, seemed to her 
to be imbued with a vague and soothing poetry peculiar 
to themselves. 

She leant upon the stone balustrade and rested her 
cheek upon her hand, and her dream-laden eyes looked 
out over the fair scene before her, whilst the soft air 
played with the loose red-brown tendrils of her hair, 
which the sun just kissed into a golden halo above her 
lovely thoughtful face. 

Cecil looked at her critically and admiringly, yet with 
a certain irritated reservation in the background of his 
mind. 


THE OUTBREAK OF THE STORM. 


245 


How lovely and charming she was ! yet, what a detest- 
ably bad match he was going to make in marrying her ! 
and how aggravating to his feelings was the incessant 
warfare within him between the personality of herself, 
which captivated his senses and the undesirable belong- 
ings who clung about her and who angered and disgusted 
him ! 

The same familiarity that increased his longing to pos- 
sess her, only bred a constant irritation and dislike within 
him towards the rest of her family. Should he be able 
to detach her, he wondered, altogether and entirely from 
these odious relations of hers? from the father who was 
dishonest and unprincipled, and from the sister who had 
been mixed up in a disgraceful intrigue with a man of 
disreputable character, and who was without doubt no 
better than she should be. Yet, unless he could so de- 
tach her from them, what chance of domestic peace could 
he possibly anticipate? It was in Cecil’s heart to wish 
at that moment that he had never set eyes upon Eleanor 
Forrester, and that her beauty and her charm had never 
beguiled him to the upsetting of all his own preconceived 
theories. Yet he did not in the least intend at that par- 
ticular moment to raise a topic which he well knew 
would he a very dangerous one, for he dreaded so much 
to lose her, that he had long ago determined to defer all 
disagreeable discussions until after they were married. 
But suddenly and all unconsciously, Nell turned round 
to him and said something which, as so often happens 
with unpremeditated words, made it impossible to him 
to adhere to his prudent resolutions. 

“1 don’t think we will take that flat, Cecil,” she re- 
marked simply, and quite unaware of the crumbling 
walls which she was about to drag down about her 
head. “You see there is no spare room, and no means 
of making one that I can see, even if we turned that 
little study into a bed-room, and a spare room is essen- 
tial to us, is it not ?” 

“ I don’t see in the least what we want with a spare 
room,” said Cecil stiffly, ranging himself on the de- 
fensive at once. “We do not want any visitors, I 
imagine.” 

“ Oh, but indeed we do, Cecil,” replied Nell lightly. 

21 * 


246 


A BAD LOT. 


“ Or, at least, I do. Dottie is coming to stay with us 
for a month as soon as we come back to London ; I have 
already invited her, and she has promised to come. I 
want to take her with us to Ascot ; you have said that 
we are to go, and Lottie will appreciate it far more than 
I shall. The dream of poor Lottie’s life is to see a real 
big race run. She has never been to anything but little 
country meetings, and she is wild with delight at the 
idea of going to Ascot. I am looking forward immensely 
too to having her to stay with us ; it will be such a good 
thing for her, it will soften and improve her so much, for 
you know, Cecil, those poor dear girls have never been 
into any nice society, and they have run rather wild at 
home, I am afraid. It will be such a good thing to get 
Lottie away from all those young fellows who are ever- 
lastingly in the house; they mean no harm, but it is all 
so — so second rate, is it not? I must put off Millie’s 
visit till the autumn, but Lottie I am determined must 
come at once, as soon as ever we come back and are set- 
tled down. So you see that flat won’t do. We must find 
one a little larger with a nice bed-room for Lottie. Why 
don’t you speak, Cecil? Why. do you look so cross? Is 
anything the matter?” 

They were walking on now across the corner of the 
park. Nell had chatted on gaily enough ; then at last 
she paused and waited for Cecil to speak, but he said 
nothing, and she looked up at him and suddenly saw that 
he was disturbed and annoyed ; that he was frowning, 
and that his eyes were gloomily bent towards his feet. 
At her last question, he lifted them and turned his face 
towards hers ; there was a cold displeasure in it, and his 
voice was hard and unsympathetic. 

“ I am sorry to vex you, Nell, but I am afraid that you 
must put all those ideas out of your mind at once.” 

“ What ideas ? What do you mean ?” she asked quickly 
and a little breathlessly, scenting war in a moment. “I 
do not understand you, Cecil.” 

“ It is very simple. I mean that I cannot allow you 
to have your sisters to stay with you. Certainly not 
Lottie ; more especially not Lottie, I may say.” 

“ But why — why ? What has Lottie done to you, 
pray ?” 


^^ALL IS OVER.” 


247 


Nell’s heart was beating; her temper, that was natu- 
rally a sweet one, began to rise by leaps and bounds, and 
when sweet-tempered people become angry, their anger 
is often more intense than that of those who are easily 
irritated. 

“ Do you mean to say that I am to have a house in 
London and am not to be allowed to ask my own sisters 
up to stay with me ? How perfectly preposterous !” 

“ Preposterous or not, I am afraid it must be so,” he 
replied very quietly. 

There was no averting the storm, it must be faced. 

“ Do not be angry with me, Nell,” trying to take her 
hand in his. “ You know that I want to do everything 
in the world to make you happy, but this one thing only 
1 cannot allow, and it is perhaps as well that you should 
know it. I cannot allow you to go about with Dottio 
when you are my wife; believe me, I have very good 
reasons for what I have decided. This is no idle preju- 
dice ; it is something much more serious.” 

And as he spoke thej- reached Park Lane, and Cecil 
put up his stick and summoned a hansom. 


CHAPTER XXYII. 

“ALL IS OVER.” 

They neither of them spoke a word during the short 
drive back to Wimpole Street. There was no question 
now in Cecil’s mind of leaving her to find her way home. 
The subject had been raised, and must perforce be 
thrashed out, and with a man’s instinctive dread of a 
scene, he felt that whatever he had to say had much 
better be said within the shelter of four walls than in 
the open street. 

“Perhaps it is as well,” he thought, “that I should 
make her understand ; that I should put my foot down 
at once about it. It will make things easier to us both 
by-and-by.” 

But still he had no thought of quarrelling with her 


248 


A BAD LOT, 


altogether, and no idea that he might fail to convince 
her of the justice and propriety of his decree. Neither 
did he mean to give Dottie away, not unless it should be 
absolutely necessary ; to begin with, he stood pledged in 
a measure to Lady Forrester not to betray the confidence 
she had placed in him, and to go on with, he believed Nell 
to be so absolutely innocent of evil that he would have 
shrunk from opening her eyes to the dreadful things of 
which he supposed her older and less innocent sister to 
have been guilty. 

Yet in an interview of this nature, 'where so much is 
at stake, where so much of deep feeling is necessarily 
aroused, and where a word too much or too little may 
upset in a moment the most carefully laid out lines of 
action, it is almost impossible to foretell where our un- 
guarded utterances may eventually land us. 

When Nell and Cecil found themselves face to face in 
that little back room of ancient memories, where oddly 
enough this other crisis of her life was destined to play 
itself out, it was Nell who took the initiative, in a man- 
ner that Cecil had scarcely reckoned upon. 

“ Now tell me what jmu mean about Dottie ?” she said 
to him quite quietly and without any sign of anger. 
“ For a long time past I have seen that Dottie has been 
out of favour with you, and you have in fact been 
scarcely civil to her. She herself has noticed it; and 
I alwaj^s thought how good and sweet-tempered she has 
been about it. I have tried to persuade her that it was 
only her fancy, and that there was nothing meant by 
your change of manner ; but now it seems that there is 
something definite, and that you have some real cause of 
offence against my sister.” 

Then she was silent, waiting for him to speak. 

Cecil leant back against the mantelshelf and contem- 
plated his own feet. Then because, like most men, he 
was morally a coward and did not like to say disagree- 
able things in plain words, he began to shuffle. 

“ There is no offence whatever, my dear child ; how 
could she offend me ? In fact, I am very grateful to her 
for having nursed you so well, and looked after you so 
kindly all the time you have been ill, only ” 

“ Only — what ? Pray speak out, Cecil. Just now you 


IS OVER” 


249 


distinctly told me that you should forbid my sisters, and 
more especially Dottie, to stay with me, and that you 
had decided this from no idle prejudice, but from very 
good reasons. I ask you to tell me what are those 
reasons.” 

“ My dear Nell, I must really beg you to believe in me 
and to trust to me. I don’t wish to be Dottie’s accuser ; 
her past history is not my affair ; it is surely not neces- 
sary for me to enter into any details about her. It is 
only when it comes to her being with you, with my 
wife, I may say, that I am in any way entitled to bear 
in mind certain things that have been brought to my 
knowledge.” 

“ What things?” she asked, with a little angry defiance 
in her eyes. And Cecil was for a long time silent. “ I 
must insist upon your explaining,” she persisted after a 
long pause, with a calmness that portended mischief. 
“ What is it that has been brought to your knowledge 
about Dottie ? If you do not tell me, Cecil, I shall go 
and fetch her, and she shall ask you herself.” 

This threat frightened him in downright earnest. 

“My dear girl, what nonsense!” he cried irritably; 
“is it likely I should tell her? Of course I am not her 
judge, as I keep on assuring you ; her doings, past or 
present, have no earthly concern for me, except only in 
so far as they touch what is dear to me, your dear and 
sweet self, my darling.” 

But his lover-like words had no effect whatever upon 
Nell. Not the remotest inkling of what was in his 
mind dawned upon her; she was only indignant and 
angry that Cecil should dare to stand there hinting all 
sorts of disparaging things about Dottie which he had 
not the courage to put into plain words. 

“You will not surely let this visit, which you and she 
seemed to have arranged without consulting me, weigh 
for one moment against my express wishes?” he went 
on, trying to divert her from the main point at issue. 

But Nell was not to be so diverted. 

“That dejDends of course upon what your objections 
to her visit are based. I love my sister, and I will not 
give up the pleasure of being with her for these vague 
generalities, which mean nothing; but if you have 


250 


A BAD LOT. 


really any distinct and just causes of complaint against 
her, I am quite willing to hear them and to endeavour 
to comply with your wishes, if it is possible.” 

He was driven into a corner, and perceived that un- 
less he gave her some sort of idea as to what he meant, 
the discussion would be endless, and the breach between 
them might widen hopelessly. 

“ I will tell you all I can, Hell,” he said at last, taking 
her cold hand in his. “ I need not perhaps say much ; 
it would be difficult to me to do so. It is simply this : 
I was told on very good authority that Dottie was on 
very intimate terms some years ago with a man of 
extremely bad character.” 

“ Who was that man ?” she asked quickly. 

“Perhaps you have never heard of him, or if you 
have, you were too young, I am thankful to say, to 
know what he was, too young perhaps even to remem- 
ber him. It is needless to tell you his name ; it was a 
name which could never have been coupled with that of 
any woman without shame and discredit, and Dottie 
was seen about alone frequently with this man ; at late 
hours, in places where girls do not go alone with any 
man unprotected and un-chaperoned. Naturally her 
reputation has suffered.” 

“ I don’t believe it — I don’t believe it for a moment !” 
she interrupted hotly. “ Dottie is not that sort of girl 
at all ; it is all fun and chaff with her. I am quite cer- 
tain that no man has ever been on terms of intimate 
friendship with her, excepting a few young fellows from 
the Barracks, like poor Mr. Popham, who is a mere boy, 
and who is perfectly harmless.” 

“ Oh, this was not Mr. Popham at all ; it was a very 
different sort of person altogether ; it was a man very 
well known in London, a man without a shred of char- 
acter; who could not be seen with a woman without 
compromising her, a married man, too, separated from 
his wife.” 

There was a long silence; Hell’s hand that he had 
been holding in his, fell away limply and coldly out of 
his grasp. She understood now what he was alluding to 
now, and yet for a few minutes she was bewildered. The 
oddness of it all, the strange trick of fate which had 


^*ALL IS OVER,*f 


251 


revived this charge, not against herself, but against her 
sister, puzzled and confused her. Why was this old 
story fixed upon Dottie, she wondered? And then a 
sudden pang of regret went through her heart. What 
a pity that she had not told Cecil long ago ; then this 
extraordinary mistake could never have arisen I It had 
been in her mind to do so, she remembered, only that 
Lady Forrester had dissuaded her. 

“You are speaking of Colonel Yane Barley, I sup- 
pose ?” she said at last very quietly. 

“You know his name, then?” he asked quickly and 
with excitement. “You are aware of this story, then, 
perhaps ?” 

“ I know what you mean, I think, but you are alto- 
gether wrong about it. Dottie was never a friend of 
Colonel Barley’s. Who told you this tale, Cecil ?” 

“ You seem to know so much, Nell,” he replied rather 
coldly and oddly, “ that it is perhaps useless to conceal 
anything from you. I heard the story first from the 
lips of a woman who is, I believe, a friend of Ida 
Yincent’s; a horrid woman, I thought; her name is 
Hartwood.” 

“Ah!” she cried, sharply striking her hands one into 
the other. “She has waited ail these years, then, to do 
me this mischief I And after all she told you that it was 
Dottie whom she saw with Colonel Barley? Well, she is 
even a wickeder woman than I thought her!” 

“Nell, I will be quite frank with you. Mrs. Hart- 
wood did not say it was Bottie. You will be very much 
upset, I am afraid, but of course I found out as soon as 
1 inquired into the story that she had made a great mis- 
take. But it was dark, and she might not have seen 
distinctly, and she was only an acquaintance after all, 
and might easily have been mistaken, for by some curi- 
ous blunder she believed that it was you.” 

“ Then who on earth told you that it was Bottie ?” was 
Nell’s only comment upon this. 

“ Your grandmother. Of course it was to her that I 
applied at once. Bon’t look so angry, Nell; she was 
quite right to tell me the truth, in fact I insisted upon 
knowing it, but you will see now why I have never been 
able to like Bottie since — why I have hated to see her 


252 


A BAD LOT. 


with my own sweet, pure-minded girl. I assure you, 
Nell, that there have been times when it has been a 
positive torture to me to see her kiss you, knowing how 
utterly unfit she was to be with you.” 

Nell began pacing up and down the small room; she 
twisted her hands together, and her face worked with 
agitation. 

“ Oh, my poor dear Bottie !” she cried, brokenly and 
. tearfully, “ to think that all this time she should have 
suffered this terrible injustice !” It was at first her only 
thought : that Dottie should have borne the stigma of 
her own fault. Oh, the wicked, cruel injustice of it! 
“ Cecil !” she cried with excitement, stopping short in 
front of him, “ let me put an end at once to this terrible 
misrepresentation. Granny told you a lie — God knows 
why or wherefore. That horrid woman, as you call her, 
spoke the truth ; it was I who was with Colonel Barley, 
I was his friend. It was I who went to an exhibition 
with him in the evening, who went down to Erith and 
spent days on his yacht, and whom that woman saw 
with him at Charing Cross Station at ten o’clock at 
night. If you count these things as sins, then it is I 
who have sinned!” 

“For God’s sake stop, Nell!” he cried sharply; “this 
cannot be true? What are you saying? You are only 
trying to shield your sister.” 

He took her almost roughly by the wrists, and drew 
her with a quick passionate movement towards him, 
looking with angry despair into her eyes. 

“ Tell me that it was not you — it is not — it cannot be 
true,” he repeated hoarsely. 

But even before she spoke he saw that it was true. 
She was very white, and there were tears in her e3'e8, 
but she did not shrink from him, or turn away her fhce. 

“ I cannot say it, Cecil — it is true 1 ” she repeated sadly. 

He dropped her hands as though they burnt him, and 
turned away from her with a groan, leaning his head 
down upon the mantelpiece upon his folded arms. 

Nell laid her soft small hand on his shoulder. She was 
very sorry for him, she liked him better perhaps, now, 
than she had ever liked him before, for he was in earnest 
— he felt — he suffered — he cared ! She saw that it was 


^^ALL IS OVER.'* 


253 


despair to him, although she could uot in the least fathom 
the mind with which she was dealing. It seemed to her 
that if he loved her really, then he must trust her too; 
it was surely not too late for perfect confidence. She 
would tell him all, and then he would be happy again. 

The gentle touch of her hand made him shiver. A 
sort of sob broke from him ; the sound of it made her 
heart ache. 

“ Dear Cecil,” she said gently, pray don’t be so mis- 
erable. I blame myself now that I did not tell you at 
first all that there was to tell — it is always better to be 
honest, I think — but I was unwilling to tell you — per- 
haps it was that I was ashamed to lay bare my misera- 
ble little history to you. I — I was not proud of it at 
all, you see,” she added falteringly, and smiling a little 
too. 

He lifted his head and turned round and faced her, 
leaning back against the mantelpiece with his hands 
tightly clenched behind him. His face was set, and stony 
and very white. 

“ But now I will tell jmu everything, if you like to 
hear me !” 

“ Go on,” he said, in a rough, choked voice. 

“ I was very young, Cecil — a mere baby — only sixteen, 
and I saw no harm in going out with Colonel Darley. I 
was staying here by myself, and it was very dull for me, 
and I met Colonel Darley by accident. He asked me to 
come out with him to that exhibition that was going on 
down at South Kensington. We dined together there, 
he and I ” 

“ Alone ?” 

“ Oh yes, of course ; and then we walked about after- 
wards in the gardens and listened to the band — and he 
took me home. Afterwards I went down to Erith three 
times, and spent the day on his yacht. He took me out 
sailing — it was all new and delightful to me. He brought 
me back every evening. He was very kind. He gave 
me this bracelet.” 

“ I asked you once who gave it you ?” he said sullenly. 

“ I know, and I told you it was an old friend. I did 
not think I was doing wrong in taking it. It was not 
till afterwards that I found out he was a married man.” 

22 


254 


A BAD LOT. 


“ He made love to you, I suppose?” 

How cold and hard Cecil’s voice had become. 

She reddened a little at the question. It was not very 
generous of him to press her, and it was so hard to tell 
him! Yet she determined to lay everything bare to 
him, and she would not draw back now. 

' “ I — I suppose he did,” she faltered, “ at least, he told 
me that he loved me, and he asked me if I would go away 
with him. I fancied in my ignorance that he wanted to 
marry me. It was grandmamma who told me that he 
was married already, and she called me a fool to believe 
in him, and then I sent him away. It was in this very 
room, Cecil, where we now stand, I wished him good- 
bye — and he went. That is all.” 

“And this precious blackguard — this married man 
who tried to get an innocent girl to run away with him 
— ^you returned his affection, I presume?” 

There was a scorn in his voice that she could not un- 
derstand. It surprised her even more than it stung her. 

“ I don’t think you ought to ask me that, Cecil ; but 
still I will be quite frank with you. I did love him, I 
suppose, at the time, or at least I thought I did — for I 
was very young, you know — but it hurt me dreadfully 
to send him away. I think in one way it has hurt me 
ever since, although, of course, as far as caring for him 
goes, I have got over it all long ago, and I have learnt 
to understand how nearly — but for God’s mercy — I 
might have been ruined altogether. Cecil, I have told 
you everything now — there is nothing more. I did 
nothing wrong. I was as innocent and ignorant as a 
child of six. I wish indeed now that I had told you 
all about it long ago ; it might have spared you some 
suffering to-day, and it would, at any rate, have saved 
you from the unjust suspicions of poor Hottie that have 
been in your mind. Now forgive me, dear, and let us be 
happy once more.” 

She held out her hands towards him and lifted her 
eyes with a little smile to his face. It did not occur to 
her for one moment that there was anything more to be 
said — only that he would kiss her, and that all would 
be well again. She was almost glad now that it wan 
over — that the story had in some fashion come to his 


^^ALL IS over: 


255 


knowledge, and that Mrs. Hartwood had done her worst. 
She would be powerless to injure her now — now that 
Cecil knew all. Then all at once she became aware of 
something in his face that was altogether new to her. 
There was no answering look of affection in his eyes, 
and her smile as she looked at him froze, and faded 
coldly away ; neither did he put out his hands to take 
those she held out to him, and presently they dropped 
down trembling to her sides. As they fdl his eyes 
caught the glitter of the diamonds in her bracelet. The 
sight seemed to madden him. There arose a tempest in 
his face — a tempest of rage and jealousy and of the 
bitterest unbelief. 

“ And you expect me to believe in this story of yours !” 
he cried, roughly and angrily. “ To shut my eyes to 
what is self-evident, and to take you back as if nothing 
had happened ! You confess to me every detail of this 
shameful story — you admit that you loved this scoundrel 
— you still actually wear upon your arm the diamonds 
with which he tempted and bought you, and yet you 
think that you can gull me into believing that you are 
as pure and innocent of evil as a child or a saint!” 

“ Cecil I” she cried, recoiling from him in horror and 
amazement. “ Do you mean to say that you don’t be- 
lieve what I have told you ?” 

“ 1 do not believe you !” he answered with angry em- 
phasis. “ Do you remember how, one day, a long time 
ago, when we were walking together across Hyde Park, 
I spoke to you about this very rumour? How I im- 
plored you to set my mind at rest and to assure me that 
there was no truth in it? You must have known in 
your heart what I alluded to. And have you forgotten 
how you — false at that moment as you are now — swore 
to me that there was nothing in your past life of which 
you would ever be ashamed? If you have forgotten 
those words, I, at least, have not. How can any man in 
his senses believe in you again after such a denial as 
that I What I believe is, that if this man Darley were 
to come across your path again, you would be capable 
of going back to him to-morrow !” 

“ It is impossible that you can think such a shameful 
thing of me, Cecil ! It is disgraceful that you should 


256 


A BAD LOT, 


say it. You must know that he is nothing to me 
now.” 

“ You say that because he is not in England,” he said, 
with a sneer, “but if he were ” 

“ He is in England,” she interrupted quickly, “ for I 
saw him. He passed us that very evening in Hyde 
Park of which you have just spoken, when you and I 
were walking home together.” 

Cecil stated at her for a minute or two in silence. He 
was thinking about the place in Ceylon, which Lady 
Eorrester had described to him, and of the letters from 
Colonel Harley which she had said she had just received. 
What a farce it all was ! And now the whole fabric of 
deceit and lies seemed to be tumbling about his ears all 
together. Then he laughed aloud — harshly and bitterly. 

“ It is really positively comic,” he exclaimed, “ but 
you have outwitted yourselves somewhat this time, you 
and your precious grandmother! What an idiot I have 
been to have believed in any one of your accursed race! 
They were right, those friends of mine, who said that I 
was a fool to trust my happiness and honour to a daugh- 
ter of Gordon Forrester, and who told me that no good, 
clean-minded woman could possibly come from such a 
stock as yours !” 

Her colour went and came quickly. It seemed impos- 
sible that she heard him aright — that these insults could 
be spoken by him. 

“ Cecil !” she gasped, “ you must be mad !” 

“ Oh, no ; I am not mad now! I have been mad, no 
doubt, but now I am sane, for I see you now as you are, 
and I know what you are.” 

There were a few seconds during which neither of 
them spoke. 

“ Then all is over between us !” she said at last, with a 
dull sense, half of bewilderment, half of relief. 

“Certainly, all is over,” he answered gravely; and 
immediately he took up his coat and hat from the chair 
upon which he had deposited them, and went out. He 
did not even turn to look at her as he left the room. 

Nell stood quite still. She felt a little numb and cold, 
a little crushed and wounded by his insulting words — 
nothing more. 


APRES CELA LE DELUGE 


257 


Then at that moment it chanced that she slipped her 
hand into her pocket, and her fingers closed upon the 
unopened letter that had lain there since the morning. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

“ET APRES CELA LE D:fiLUGE !” 

The familiar French quotation recurred to Hell’s mind 
many a time in after days, whenever she looked back to 
that period of her life which followed immediately upon 
Cecil’s resignation of his claims to her. So many events 
succeeded that one great event of her life, with such ex- 
traordinary rapidity, toppling over each other and trip- 
ping each other up as it were by the pace with which 
they rushed upon her, that it was often a difficulty to 
her to remember how and in what order they all of them 
came to pass. 

Yet in reviewing all these changes and events which 
so shortly befell her, one thing alone was clear to her. 
There had been a good deal of consternation in her 
mind as the door closed upon Cecil’s departing figure, 
but there had been absolutely no sorrow whatever ; such 
sorrows as she now was called upon to endure arose 
from other sources. 

She heard the door of the house bang behind Cecil 
Roscoe with a strange mingling of feelings. For a few 
moments she felt physically stunned and dazed, as one 
does after a bad fall, for it was so astonishing, and so 
utterly unexpected that Cecil should leave her of his 
own free will ! So often had she — knowing the secrets 
of her own heart — debated and doubted within herself 
as to whether it would not be more honest to break off 
her engagement with him, and whether she had herself 
the strength to carry it out ; but never, never in the 
wildest flights of her imagination had she conceived it 
possible that it would be Cecil who would be the one to 
sever the bonds between them ! 

Presently, when the last sound of the closing door 
r 22* 


258 


A BAD LOT, 


had faded away into silence, she laughed a little — hardly 
and mirthlessly — with the sort of laugh that it is not 
good to hear. 

“His love wasn’t worth much after all!” she said 
aloud, adding again after a moment, “ But, then, is any 
man’s love worth anything?” 

Then she turned and went slowly upstairs. The house 
was very silent and empty. JDottie had not come in, 
Lady Forrester was still invisible ; when she had one of 
her bad headaches she could never be disturbed — yet 
something would have to be done — somebody would 
have to be told ! The trousseau must be stopped, the 
presents sent back, the family at home informed of what 
had happened. What a mountain-load of petty troubles 
and annoyances lay before her! A man gets off scot 
free from all that kind of thing, thought Hell; he just 
walks away and goes on with his life without any fur- 
ther bother, leaving to the woman all those irksome and 
humiliating details that are so intolerable to the patience, 
and so wounding to the pride. 

It was Hell who was left to explain the situation to 
the world — to make it plain to friends and relations that 
Cecil Roscoe had jilted her! 

And, what for ? What reason could she give ? How 
was she to say that it was because six years ago she had 
been foolish enough to enjoy a few days’ pleasure in the 
company of a man old enough to have been her father ! 
Who would believe in so flimsy an excuse ? Yet abso- 
lutely there was no other reason to give ! 

How childish and foolish it all seemed ! Yet, childish 
and foolish though it might be, it was real enough in its 
results ; and inexplicable as Cecil’s conduct seemed to be 
to her, she was now left to face the consequences of his 
desertion of her as best she might. 

There was something else that was more serious and 
more upsetting to her, even than Cecil’s renunciation of 
her — and that was Lady Forrester’s deceit and treachery. 
Hell felt that the lie which she had told to Cecil was very 
hard to forgive ; it would have been bad enough had she 
only denied the story on her account, but to have fas- 
tened it upon poor Lottie, appeared to her to be so black 
a sin, that she could not help feeling that her respect 


APRES CELA LE DELUGED 


259 


and aifection for her grandmother had received a very 
rude shock indeed. 

There was, however, apparently nothing to be done in 
that direction at present, for Lady Forrester’s maid 
barred the way to her room, and refused to allow her 
lady to be disturbed — it was as liiuch as her place was 
worth, she said, to let any one into the room. 

So Nell went upstairs to her own old bedroom, and 
sat down on the edge of the little white bed, and there, 
idly and aimlessly, and without very much interest in 
it, she broke open the envelope with the oddly-traced 
address that had been brought to her in the morning, 
before Cecil’s ill-fated visit. 

But the very first words of the letter it inclosed ar- 
rested her attention forcibly, and set her heart beating. 

“Dear little Nell,” — ran the scrawling, almost 
illegible handwriting — written not in ink, but in pencil, 
“ I am dying, and I want to see you before I die. I 
came back to England a few months ago in very bad 
health, and half ruined in fortune. I came home chiefly 
because as I am now a widower, I meant to see you 
again, and ask you if you would marry me, for I have 
never forgotten you, dear little Nell. All these years I 
have never ceased to love and admire you — the bravest 
and the best woman I have ever known. But your 
grandmother told me that you were engaged to be mar- 
ried, and were happy, and bade me not trouble you, and 
so I left you alone, and I never would have bothered 
you, dear, only that now the doctors tell me I have not 
many hours to live, and I want to see you once more 
before I die and ask you to forgive me. I caught this 
cursed influenza three weeks ago, and on the top of the 
fevers I had had in the East, it has finished me off. Do 
come to me, dear child. I don’t think you can refuse 
me — only come as soon as you can, because it is my 
lungs they tell me that have gone amiss, and 1 have so 
run down that I may die at any moment now. I don’t 
think I can last out till to-morrow, and I am so longing 
to see you, little Nell. 

“ Yours, a Poor Old Devil, 

“Yane Darley.” 


260 


A BAD LOT. 


It did not take Nell many minutes, after reading this 
letter, to put on her hat and jacket and slip out of the 
house. 

“/ am dying. Come and see me again before I die"' Can 
such an appeal ever be made in vain to a woman who has 
a heart, and not a stone within her ! and when the appeal 
comes from a man who has once been dear to her, how- 
ever unworthy of her love he may have been, it comes 
doubly home to her and with an absolutely irresistible 
force. It is certain that Nell Forrester would not in any 
case have refused that dying petition — not even had she 
been still engaged to Cecil — for there are certain things 
in life which speak so directly from God himself to the 
divine essence that is within us, that all those other 
trivial matters of expediency and of worldly wisdom, 
and all the petty formalities of an artificial existence, 
are perforce brushed aside, as if they were so many cob- 
webs, and become as mere nothingness, compared to those 
stupendous issues of humanity which set us face to face 
with the great and unfathomable problems of Death and 
of Eternity. 

Poor Yane Parley! dying alone in a London lodging- 
house — poor and friendless in his last hours I He, who 
had always been so royally generous and open-handed to 
his friends in the days of his prosperity, so popular and 
so lovable even in all the reckless materialism of his devil- 
may-care life I 

Nell, as she hurried eastward through the dreary 
London streets and squares, forgave him freely and 
fully — she forgot that she was even now paying the 
penalty of his past offences against her — that the conse- 
quences of his conduct had, for the second time, spoilt 
her life, and hardened her heart ; and that to her dying 
day, that fatal knowledge of evil which had poisoned the 
purest springs of her nature, would in a large measure 
be owing to his treatment of her. 

He had loved her. That was all she remembered now. 
He had loved her wrongly indeed — yet surely, truly and 
faithfully, since even at the end of his ill-spent life he 
had desired to make amends to her. It is something to 
have been well loved once — even by a blackguard — 
thought Nell, as the blinding tears swelled hotly in her 


APRES CEL A LE DELUGE!' 


261 


eyes. Let others blame and curse him; let another 
Judge — greater and more just than man — condemn and 
punish him, if needs be ; but she herself would cast no 
stone at him. 

Very soon she was standing on the doorstep of the 
house. She never saw how, from the opposite windows, 
a woman’s keen and malicious eyes watched her go in, 
and timed her entrance and her departure with greedy 
eagerness ; but it would have made no difference to her had 
she known of it. Nell, standing on the threshold where 
Death was even now waiting to enter, was far beyond 
all smaller things — she thought of nothing save the er- 
rand of forgiveness and mercy on which she had come. 

He was alive still, and conscious, but almost at the last 
breath. When she came close to him, and bent over the 
bed and laid her cool soft hand upon the fever-wasted 
fingers that lay upon the coverlet, he opened his eyes 
fully and smiled at her. A smile so bright and so beau- 
tiful that it brought back to his face, for one brief 
moment, something of its old charm and fascination. 

“ Ah — I knew you would come 1” he said ; and there 
was a joyful triumph in the faint whispered words. 
“ You are very good, little Nell, I always knew that you 
would be good to me. Say that you forgive me, dear — 
for I behaved very badly to you. I see now what I did. 
It was the blackest action of all my black, bad life.” 

“ Do not speak of it any more,” she murmured sooth- 
ingly ; “ it is all forgiven and forgotten, long, long ago.” 

He pressed her hand softly, and his eyes closed. The 
little flicker of excitement which had given him the 
strength to speak, died out. The hospital nurse, at the 
other side of the bed, moistened his lips with a few drops 
of some cordial she held in her hand ; but for many min- 
utes he did not speak, and it seemed as though he might 
pass away thus — painlessly and silently, with Nell’s hand 
fast locked in his. But all at once he opened his eyes, 
and spoke again. 

“ Kiss me, little Nell,” he said quite distinctly. 

She stooped and pressed her lips to his forehead. 

The first — and the last,” he murmured, as though to 
himself But Nell understood — and presently two hot 
tears from her lovely eyes dropped down into the thin 


262 


A BAD LOT, 


hand she held. He looked up at her again a little star- 
tled, as though her tears had aroused him. 

“ Go now,” he said hurriedly, and loosed her hand. “ I 
do not wish you to see me die.” 

She bowed her head and left the room in silence, with 
a heart too full for words ; but for more than an hour she 
sat outside his door by herself upon the landing, waiting 
to hear of the end. 

After a long, long time the hospital nurse came out of 
the room. She closed the door softly behind her. She 
was crying. 

“ He is gone,” she said to Hell ; ‘‘ he never spoke 
again after you went. The end was quite calm and 
peaceful.” 

“ And his last words were a thought for me ?” said Nell 
brokenly. 

“ Yes. He did not want to cause you any pain. Before 
you came, he told me that. He said I was not to allow 
you to remain to the end, for fear of upsetting you. Poor 
gentleman ; he was most patient and unselfish all through 
his illness.” And the woman — she was still young, and 
her heart was very tender in spite, or perhaps by reason 
of, her profession — wept silently. 

As for Nell, she went away dumbly and sadly, without 
another word or tear, and all the way home there was a 
cold chill at her heart, and a voice that said to her: 
“ Shall I ever, I wonder, be loved again so faithfully and 
so truly — as poor wicked Vane Barley loved me, up to 
the end of his sinful life I” 

* 

Late that night Ida Vincent received a letter — it was 
a thick letter with an inclosure — there were in fact two 
letters inside the envelope. The outer one was addressed 
to herself, and ran thus ; 

<‘Bear Miss Vincent, 

“ I told you that I might possibly have some further 
news for you — and you promised to remunerate me hand- 
somely should I be able to give you any definite informa- 
tion that should serve to break off a certain gentleman’s en- 
gagement to a certain lady. If you will send the inclosed 
letter to your friend, I think you will find it will have 


APJtES CEL A LE DELUGEP 


263 


the desired eifect. I must ask you to send me ten pounds 
in advance, and forty pounds when the marriage is broken 
off. This was our agreement, as I daresay you remem- 
ber, and as 1 am a poor hard-worked widow, with my 
livelihood to make, I must hold you to the bargain, 
much as I wish I could afford to do all I have done for 
you out of pure friendship’s sake. You will not, I trust, 
repudiate the debt, for in that case I should in justice to 
myself be obliged to bring the matter to the notice of 
your father. 

“ Ever, dear Miss Vincent, 

Your humble and affectionate friend, 
Mary Hart wood.” 

Ida remained for a few moments transfixed with 
amazement, staring at this communication. She could 
remember no agreement with Mrs. Hartwood — no bar- 
gain between them that had ever amounted to such a 
sum as fitly pounds. It seemed to her, as far as she 
could recollect, that she had already paid Mrs. Hartwood 
amply for any future information that had been promised 
to her ; and fifty pounds was a very difficult matter to her. 
The sum staggered her, but the threat of appealing to 
her father alarmed her still more. Presently she per- 
ceived that there was a postscript to the letter, which 
had at first escaped her notice, and she read it eagerly. 

“P.S. — After deep thought and prayer, I have con- 
cluded to leave the envelope of my inclosure open. I may 
be doing wrong, for it cannot be altogether wise to allow 
an innocent girl to perceive the wickedness of this evil 
world; yet, after much reflection, I have come to the 
conclusion that perhaps it may in this case be right that 
you should know all. You will see then that I am not 
prizing the service I am rendering you too highly. Open 
the inclosure, read it, and then address and post it to the 
right person.” 

And Ida took her at her word, and opened it and read it; 

It may interest Mr. Cecil Koscoe to learn that Colonel 
Vane Darley is now lodging at No. 9, Upper Warbrook 


264 


A BAD LOT. 


Place, and that Miss Eleanor Forrester spent one hour 
and thirty-five minutes there this afternoon. The writer 
recommends Mr. Eoscoe to call at the house himself, in 
order to verify the truth of the statement.” 

Ida Yincent folded up the note with a little gasp. 
“That ought to do it!” she thought, whilst all her 
pulses throbbed with wild excitement. “ She would 
never dare to tell him to go there to inquire if she 
did not know it to be true ! Well, perhaps after all fifty 
pounds is not too much to pay for it — and I must get the 
money out of papa somehow or other!” 

And then she addressed the note in a feigned hand to 
Cecil, at his chambers in Lincoln’s Inn, and went out 
herself and posted it in the nearest pillar box. 


CHAPTEK XXIX. 

LADY Forrester’s forlorn hope. 

“ You are the biggest fool in creation !” 

It was not by any means the first time that Lady 
Forrester had called her a fool, but perhaps she had 
never uttered the opprobrious epithet with so much en- 
ergy and emphasis as at the present moment. Xell stood 
in front of her, very upright, and pale and determined. 

“Why did you tell him that wicked and cruel lie, 
Granny ?” she asked for the second time. 

“ Why f you stupid donkey I” shrieked the old woman 
furiously. “ Can’t you see why for yourself ? Of course, 
because I knew what would happen if I told him the 
truth, exactly what has happened now that you have 
been such a fool as to tell him yourself! I knew he 
would chuck you over at once — and you see he has done 
so!” 

“There is no reason on earth why he should have 
‘ chucked me over,’ as you call it,” said Hell hotly. “ If 
you had told him the truth at first, he would have be- 
lieved us both, but now he believes neither of us, and 


LADY FORRESTER^S FORLORN HOPE. 265 


you know very well, grandmamma, that I did nothing 
to deserve this treatment of his — there was no harm in 
anything I did all those years ago.” 

“ And don’t I also know very well — much better than 
you do — what those sanctimonious strait-laced people 
are! What does it signify to them whether there is 
‘ harm,’ as you call it, in what you do ? It isn’t the laws 
of God your Roscoes think about — it’s the laws of their 
own narrow world, I tell you! Do you suppose that 
stuck-up young prig cares a brass button whether you 
were guilty of an actual sin or not? All he wanted to 
be certain of was that you had not so transgressed 
against the canons of propriety and prudery that the 
world might ever suspect you had done worse. Well, 
you had done that, Nell, there is no denying it, you 
know! and if your young man had been told of it six 
months ago he would have done exactly the same as 
he has done now — thrown you over on the spot. I 
saved you splendidly, I consider, and all I get is ingrati- 
tude and abuse !” 

“ But to fix it on to poor Dottie, Granny ! How could 
you be so cruel and unjust?” persisted Nell, indignantly. 

Tut — tut ! What possible harm could it do Dottie ! 
She hadn’t got a fine lover ferreting about to try and 
pick holes in her reputation ! It couldn’t possibly 
signify to Dottie, and, as you see, it has ruined you 
utterly ! And what is your father going to say to it, I 
wonder. He, poor man, who was so delighted about 
your marriage! And then there is all the money 
wasted. Why, instead of pitching into me, Nell, how is 
it you don’t see yourself how disgracefully you have 
treated us all ?” 

The allusion to her now useless trousseau made Nell 
feel remorseful ; indeed, the penitence was all hers, for 
as for bringing home Lady Forrester’s sin to her con- 
science, she began to see that it was hopeless. For, to 
begin with. Lady Forrester had not got a conscience at 
all ; a lie being to her only wicked when it failed in its 
object ; and although in the present case she was con- 
strained to admit that she had lied futilely and in vain, 
yet the conviction of this only served to arouse in her — 
not contrition and self-abasement — but a frantic and 

23 


M 


266 


A BAD LOT. 


helpless rage against the stupidity which had rendered 
her well-meant efforts of none effect, 

“I am really awfully distressed about my clothes, 
Granny,” said Nell penitently. “ I know it has been a 
great expense to you, and lam sorry.” 

But Lady Forrester with unaccountable capricious- 
ness behaved very well about the clothes ; she forbore to 
dwell upon that side of the subject. 

“ Oh well, that is the least part of it, and it can’t be 
helped,” she said indifferently. “ Perhaps Madame Den- 
telle can dispose of some of the gowns for us ; that is a 
small matter. What angers me is that you should have 
had such a chance of marrying well and respectably — 
a chance you will probably never have again — and have 
thrown it away at the last moment, from sheer per- 
versity and stupidity!” 

“We must agree to differ about that. Granny,” said 
Nell quietly. “ 1 could not have married Cecil when 1 
discovered what he believed, and what you had said to 
him — without telling him the truth. It would have 
been an injustice to Lottie, and moreover it would have 
been downright dishonesty on my part. I cannot blame 
myself in the least. I know that I have done right. 
That Cecil has chosen to take it in this way, is certainly 
not my fault.” 

“ Well, you know, Nell, I did it all for the best, and if 
I had not said 

“ I can never admit that it was for the best,” inter- 
rupted Nell warmly. “I must always blame you for 
what you told him. Surely, surely nothing can justify 
a deliberate lie!” 

Then the old lady lost her temper. “Hoity-toity!” 
she cried mockingly and angrilj^, “ things have come to 
a pretty pass indeed when little girls talk about ‘ lies’ to 
their grandmothers! What is the world coming to, 1 
should like to know ? It is not at all a pretty word, 
Miss Nell, to use to me, let me tell you! ‘Deliberate 
lie’ indeed !” 

“ But it is the true word. Granny ; why, what else 
would you call it then?” inquired Nell in a low voice of 
sorrowful reproach. 

Then over the old woman’s flushed and angry face 


LADY FORRESTER'S FORLORN HOPE. 267 


there broke a sudden small sly smile, which wrinkled 
her old face all over into a hundred little lines and 
creases. She had such a keen sense of the comic side of 
things that her anger was always short-lived. 

“ Come here,” she said in a whisper, reaching out her 
hand and drawing the unwilling girl close to her side. 
“ Whist! don’t say it aloud, whatever you do! But, of 
course, it was a lie ! But where’s the harm in a lie, I 
should like to know !” And there was something dis- 
tinctly resembling a wink in the corner of one screwed 
up little ferrety eye. “ Don't shout it out ; but, my dear 
child, every one tells lies ! the good people as well as the 
bad ones, and the world simply couldn’t go on without 
them ! But the very last thing we any of us want is to 
be accused of lying ! That is quite another matter. It’s 
rude and ill-bred and altogether shocking if you put it 
into words; you must never do that. But it’s a very 
simple matter, after all, if you never talk about it out 
loud ! don’t you see ?” 

Nell could not quite acquiesce in this curious and tor- 
tuous code of morality ; at the same time, the hopeless- 
ness of arguing the matter out with Lady Forrester 
silenced her, it even made her smile a little — a sad 
wintry smile, which only a faint cynicism restrained 
from being ushered in with tears. 

“ I am very sorry for you, Nell,” said the old lady 
graciously, after a short pause. “For you have gone 
and spoilt your prospects by your own folly ; you are an 
aggravating, disappointing girl, my dear! Eeally, I 
don’t see what future lies before you now. You might, 
perhaps, marry poor old Yane Darley — only he has got 
no money nowadays.” 

“ Grandmamma, Colonel Darley is dead ! I went to 
see him to-day — he was very ill — he sent for me, and he 
died before I left the house.” 

“ My goodness !” ejaculated Lady Forrester, sitting up- 
right in her chair and staring at her granddaughter 
through her eye-glasses. “ You are a very extraordinary 

f irl, Nell ! You astonish really me. He sent for you ? 

ou went to see him ? Good heavens alive, when did 
you go ?” 

“Just after Cecil left the house. You were not out 


268 


A BAD LOT. 


of your room — Dottie was out. I got a letter from him, 
and I just went off at once by myself; and I am very 
glad indeed that 1 was in time, and that I saw him 
again,” she added a little brokenly. 

But Lady Forrester expressed no word of regret for 
Colonel Barley’s death. 

She sat quite silent for some minutes, fluttering the 
cards that always lay on the small table by her side, 
with nervous trembling fingers. She was thinking. 

Presently Nell left the room. Lady Forrester had a 
forlorn hope — she rose from her chair and walked over 
to the writing table. 

“ All isn’t, perhaps, lost yet,” she murmured to her- 
self thoughtfully. “ I might be able to whistle him 
back !” and then she sat down and wrote a long letter 
in the queer spindle spidery handwriting that was pe- 
culiar to herself, but that was no longer so upright and 
so clear as it used to be. 

“ If the man is dead, he can’t possibly be jealous any 
more,” she muttered as she fastened up the letter and 
addressed it to Cecil Eoscoe, at his chambers in Lin- 
coln’s Inn. “ The dead can’t tell tales, and a tombstone 
is the best recipe of all for forgetfulness.” And then she 
rang the bell, and ordered the letter to be posted imme- 
diately. 

The following morning, when Cecil got down to his 
chambers, the two letters — the one in an unknown hand- 
writing and the other in Lady Forrester’s, which he 
knew — lay side by side upon his desk. He took up 
Lady Forrester’s first, and read it with some eagerness; 
up to a certain point it was a very clever letter. She 
was very penitent and contrite over what she had done, 
owned that she had misled him, through perhaps a par- 
donable partiality for her dearest grandchild, and en- 
treated him not to visit the sins of a wicked old woman 
upon an innocent girl who had done nothing wrong; 
she went then at some length into the old story, telling 
it fairly correctly, and dwelling upon Nell’s extreme 
youth and her innocence and ignorance in the hands of 
a hardened and unscrupulous man of the world. And 
then she assured him that Nell was simply heart-broken, 
that her face was pale and haggard and her eyes swollen 


LADY FORRESTER'S FORLORN HOPE. 2G9 


with weeping, that she was in despair, had gone from 
one fainting fit to another, and that she — liady For- 
rester — sadly feared his cruelty would make the dear 
girl very ill again. Up to this point the letter told its 
story very well, and Cecil, who had had all night to think 
about it and to begin a little bit to repent of the austerity 
and harshness with which he had doubted his ^sell and 
cast her olf, was distinctly inclined to be melted, more es- 
pecially by the graphic picture she drew of Nell, weep- 
ing and fainting and breaking her heart for him. This, 
of course, as Lady Forrester had reckoned, touched his 
vanity and inclined him to think more kindly of her. 
But, alas ! it was evident that Lady Forrester must have 
well nigh reached her dotage, for the postscript undid 
it all, and with one fell swoop all these tender feelings 
of his were shattered into powder. 

“P. S. — Sad news has just come to me by the Indian 
mail! That poor erring, sinful man, Vane Darly, is no 
more ! A friend from Ceylon writes to me that he suc- 
cumbed to the elfects of jungle fever, aggravated by a 
chill caught after bathing, on the fourteenth of last 
month! Well, well — we must not judge him! Let us 
hope that he repented of his evil life, even on his death- 
bed ! At any rate, I am thankful that he can never 
trouble my dearest Nell any more.” 

Here was the lying romance about Ceylon all over 
again ! Cecil dashed the letter angrily to the ground 
with a curse. 

“ Liars ! liars, every one of them !” he cried aloud, 
pacing the whole length of the room in his agitation. 
“ The whole story is a d — d lie from beginning to end.” 

And then, after an interval, he went back to his 
writing table and opened the other letter — the anony- 
mous one — which Ida Vincent had sent on to him. And 
when he had read that communication, he was more cer- 
tain than ever that Nell was as false as her grandmother, 
and felt convinced that he had done the wise and right 
thing in casting her off from him for ever. 

Then Cecil Eoscoe did what perhaps in a calmer 
moment he would have scorned to do : he very literally 

23* 


270 


A BAD LOT. 


followed the advice of the writer of that anonymous 
letter. 

It was not a very high-minded course to take, for an 
anonymous letter is theoretically supposed to be a vile 
and contemptible thing — we all of us say so, at any rate 
— and we are all ready enough to blame the man or the 
woman who gives ear to the foul and cowardly sus- 
picions which these degraded communications are fond 
of insinuating. An anonymous letter is like a noisome 
reptile, or so we are wont to say ; it must be flung into 
the fire with curses, and forgotten as speedily as possi- 
ble. Yet sometimes man is weak, and temptation is 
strong, and the detested thing appeals too strongly to the 
meanest and lowest portion of one’s nature to be suc- 
cessfully combated and overcome. 

Cecil, it must be admitted, did not even make a pre- 
tence at a fight. 

“ I will get to the bottom of all this,” he said to him- 
self. “ I will see for myself whether it is true or not.” 

And then and there he went out and put himself into 
a hansom, and had himself driven, as he had been told to 
do, to 9, tipper Warbrook Place, Bloomsbury. 

When he got to the house he saw that there was a card 
in the fan-light window above the front door, stating that 
there were lodgings to let to families and gentlemen. 

He glanced up at the windows of the drawing-room 
floor, where there were some smart lace curtains tied 
up with red ribbons. He did not notice that, higher up 
in the house, there were two windows of which the 
blinds were closely drawn as in a chamber of death. He 
rang the bell, and as he rang, it just flashed through his 
mind that possibly she might have called here to see 
some one else. A number of people might be lodging in 
the same house. 

A respectable-looking man opened the door. 

“ Can you tell me if a young lady called here yester- 
day afternoon ?” he inquired. The man looked surprised 
at the question, and hesitated for a moment. 

“ Well, yes, sir. There was a young lady who came 
here in a hansom.” 

“ Hid she give her name ? and, if so, can you recol- 
lect it ?” 


LADF FORRESTER'S FORLORN HOPE. 271 


“ Yes, sir ; she gave me a card to take up. I remem- 
ber the name perfectly — it was ‘ Miss E. Forrester.’ ” 

“ She came alone ?” 

“ Yes, sir ; quite alone.” 

And who did she come to visit ?” 

She asked for Colonel Darley, sir.” 

‘And she went in to see him?” 

The man nodded gravely. Cecil thought him a mel- 
ancholy-looking person. He slij)ped a half-sovereign 
into his not unwilling hand. 

“ I should be much obliged to you if you would tell 
me how long the lady remained here?” was his next 
question. 

“ Well, I couldn’t exactly say, sir, as I did not see her 
go out, though I believe I heard the door slam behind 
her ; but it must have been rather over an hour and a 
half, I should say, that she was here. Did you wish to 
walk upstairs, sir ; perhaps you may be a relation ? 
You might like to see him?” he added in a mysterious, 
whisper. 

Cecil did not notice anything strange in the man’s 
face or manner — the hushed voice and solemn eyes sug- 
gested nothing to him — he was too full of what he had 
heard to remark anything else. He had learnt all that 
he had come to learn. He shook his head, and walked 
away slowly and sadly — miserable enough, and sick at 
heart. 

“ I have done well to rid myself of her,” he thought 
as he walked. “I regret nothing; I ought to be glad 
that I have had such an escape !” 

And yet he did not look in the least glad, and his heart 
was very sore. 

Almost instinctively, instead of returning to Lincoln’s 
Inn, he turned his steps toward Piccadilly. He had a 
craving for the sympathy of the only friend to whom he 
could open his heart, and it was only when he was close 
to Julian Temple’s rooms that he recollected that he 
must be still out of town. 

nevertheless, he went upstairs and knocked at his 
friend’s door. The valet, whom he knew very well, ad- 
mitted him. The rooms seemed to him to be in an 
unwonted state of disorder. 


272 


A BAD LOT. 


“ No, sir ; Mr. Temple is not here — he has gone. He 
started this morning,” he said to him. 

“ Started ? what do you mean ? Is not your master 
at Culverdale ?” 

“ We was there, sir, but we came up the day before 
yesterday. Mr. Temple has gone abroad — on a voyage. 
He did not want me with him ; I am to mind his rooms. 
He went off at eight o’clock this morning.” 

“ You astonish me, Edwardes ! Do you mean to tell 
me that Mr. Temple has gone abroad, without a word or 
a line of farewell to me ? — it is inconceivable !” 

“ Stay, sir, there is a note for you on the mantelshelf; 
I was to have taken it to your house this afternoon.” 

Cecil tore the letter open ; it was very short. Julian 
said he was seedy and out of sorts ; that his doctor had 
recommended him a sea voyage, and that, finding some 
friends of his who were going out immediately for a 
trip to New Zealand, he had taken a passage on the same 
ship, and was starting at very short notice, and had no 
time for farewells to any one. “ 1 cannot tell how long 
I may prolong my travels,” he wrote, “ but when I come 
back, old man, I shall find you a married man, well 
settled down into domestic bliss. Good luck and all 
happiness to you, and to your bride.” 

Cecil tore up the letter, and went away. It seemed to 
him, as he walked sorrowfully and sadl}^ down Picca- 
dilly, that he had lost everything on earth all at once — 
love and friendship, happiness and sympathy, all had 
deserted and failed him! He felt very forlorn and 
miserable. 

Presently he ran up against Major Pryor, who was 
perambulating his usual matutinal haunts. Cecil would 
have passed him with a nod, for he was in no mood for 
gossip, but the old dandy button holed him at once, and 
he had no chance of escaping. 

“ Ah, my dear boy ! I have been wanting to see you. 
Is it true, as I am told, that you are going to be mar- 
ried ? I must congratulate you, heartily ; and, my dear 
fellow, I do hope that you will forget and forgive any 
little unfortunate remarks of mine about your future 
wife’s family. Of course, I did not know at the time, 
and if 1 said anything — ahem ! For, of course, I have 


THE LAST OF POOR ^^OORDIE.’> 273 

never met the young lady herself, and I am sure she is 
charming. I must beg you to forget ” 

“ Pray do not apologize, major,” said Cecil hurriedly, 
reddening at the words. “I may as well tell you at 
once that my engagement is at an end — it is in fact 
broken off entirely — so you need not trouble yourself 
with congratulations on my account.” 

“ But, my dear boy, on the contrary, quite on the con- 
trary!” then cried the major joyously, and seizing 
Cecil’s hand he shook it warmly and heartily. “ I con- 
gratulate you fifty times more ! 1 am delighted to hear 

that you have broken it off — sensible man ! You’ve done 
quite the wise thing, my dear fellow,” and then lowering 
his voice, and putting his finger up to his nose, the major 
added with a portentous wink, “ i expect you found out 
for yourself all about them. They are a bad lot — those 
Forresters I” 


CHAPTER XXX. 

THE LAST OP POOR “GORDIE.” 

There was something unusual in the aspect of the 
house, when Dottie and Hell drove up to it in the sta- 
tion fly, on their return home. It was evening, and the 
days were lengthening out ; yet the house seemed all 
silent and dark. There was no life about the place, no 
open doors and windows, no idle maids hanging over the 
kitchen garden gate looking out for their sweethearts 
from the village, no chorus of noisy and joyful barkings 
to greet them on their return. What ailed the dogs that 
they were so silent? Why, too, were there no lights 
in the lower rooms — only a faint glimmer, strange and 
unusual at such an hour, from the upper room over the 
front door that was their father’s bedroom ? 

“ How odd it looks,” murmured Dottie, as their slow 
and lumbering vehicle came jog-trotting up the moss- 
grown drive, between the swedes and the potato fields on 
either hand. 

i8 


274 


A BAD LOT. 


“I wonder why Millie and the dogs have not come 
down to the gate to meet us?” said Il^’ell uneasily. 
“ There isn’t a sound or a sign of the dogs, and usually 
they are half-way down to the gate long before a car- 
riage turns in to it. I wrote to father yesterday, so 
they must know that we were coming by this train.” 

“ Did you tell him everything, Nell ?” 

“ Of course ; I had to. It was better, I think, to 
pave the way by writing.” 

‘‘ Poor Gordie !” breathed Dottie almost inaudibly. 

Presently, as they drew near to the house, she 
clutched convulsively at her sister’s arm. 

“ Nell !” she cried out sharply. “ What is that before 
the front door? that black thing?” 

Nell peered out ; in the dim and growing twilight that 
made all things seem uniformly grey she discerned a 
large dark object that was stationary in front of the 
door. 

“ I think it is a carriage,” said Nell rather faintly. 

“ Are you sure — are you sure ? Nell, it looks — oh, my 
God ! it looks like a hearse !” 

“ Dottie ! what a horrible idea I and how foolish jmu 
are!” cried Nell sharply. “Why, I see it quite plainly 
now — it is a brougham. It is only Doctor Paines’ 
brougham.” 

“Then somebody must be ill,” said Dottie more 
calmly, recovering herself from the momentary terror 
which had unnerved her ; and then she put her head, 
out of the window and shouted to the man to drive on 
faster. 

“Nell,” she said to her sister solemnly, as they neared 
the house, “I am quite certain that it is Gordie, and 
that he is very ill.” 

“ Oh, no, dear Dottie. Why should it be him ? It 
might bo one of the servants, or it might be nothing; 
Dr. Baines often looks in if he happens to be near,” 
murmured Nell soothingly. 

Dottie shook her head. 

“ I know Gordie better than you do, Nell. That letter 
of yours will give him his death-blow. He was so bent 
upon your marriage — so proud, and so happy — he will 
never get over it !” 


THE LAST OF POOR '^GORDIE. 


275 


She was right. Millie met them in the hall with a 
seared, white face. The doctor was upstairs ; it was the 
third time to-day that he had come, but it was all of no 
use, for since two o’clock he had been unconscious, 

“Unconscious!” echoed Nell faintly. She staggered 
back against the wall; she was stunned by the word, 
for if he was unconscious, it meant surely that he was 
dying! Had she killed her father? 

It seemed so indeed from Millie’s next words. Millie 
did not mince matters — it was not perhaps in her nature 
to do so. 

“It was just after your letter came, Nell; he read it 
through, and then he gave a kind of a shout, as if ho 
was hurt, and then he sort of tumbled down half across 
the table, and began to moan and sob and cry like a 
child. I read the letter of course, Nell, to see what was 
wrong, and was horrified myself to find your marriage 
was all off*, and then, as I couldn’t make Gordie speak 
or look up, went out and got him a glass of brandy. 
Luckily there was a little left of those three bottles of 
old stuff that Poppet gave him on his birthday, you re- 
member, Lottie ? Well, he drank it down and seemed 
better for a little while. He said to mo once, ‘ I am a 
ruined man, Millie; luck has always been dead against 
me all my life I’ And he gave me such a dreadful look 
as he said so. But presently he got up and went out of 
the dining-room and walked quite strongly into the 
study. He told me he was better, but he looked very 
queer and grey, and he had a sort of wild look I did not 
quite like about his eyes; so, after about an hour, when 
I had just been round to the stables and seen to the 
mare, and given the dogs their morning run round the 
paddock, I thought I’d just look in to the study again, 
and see how he was getting on. Imagine my horror! 
there was poor dear old Gordie lying flat on his back on 
the floor! I screamed, and shouted for the servants, 
and we found that he didn’t know us a bit, although ho 
was moaning and muttering away to himself as hard as 
anything. We got him up to bed somehow between us, 
and Doctor Baines was here half an hour later; he said 
it was some kind of a fit or stroke. I don’t think it 
matters much what it is,” added Millie, beginning to cry 


276 


A BAD LOT. 


piteously, “ for he says now it is quite hopeless, and that 
he will never rally again.” 

“ And I have killed him !’' said Nell, blankly and hope- 
lessly. “ Oh, for God’s sake, Millie, don’t tell me that it 
is my doing — that I have killed our father!” 

Doctor Baines came down the staircase behind them 
and overheard the words. 

He was very much interested in Nell, who had been 
his patient for a long time, and he took her hands in his 
and held them kindly. 

“ No, no, my dear Miss Eleanor, we are not going to 
tell you anything of the sort. Your letter, about which 
Miss Millicent has told me, may perhaps have given him 
a bit of a turn — but nothing more. The fact is, your poor 
father’s life was not a good one. I knew that long ago, 
when I attended him for rheumatic fever; it was when 
you were all little bits of children. You don’t remem- 
ber it. He was very ill ; and I have known ever since 
then that his heart was affected, and that he might go 
off suddenly at any time. Don’t distress yourself, my 
dear,” patting Nell’s hand between his own, we can’t 
afford to have you ill again, too. You had really noth- 
ing whatever to do with it.” 

But Nell knew that he was only saying this to com- 
fort her. 

“Is there no hope. Dr. Baines?” said poor Dottie 
brokenly. 

The doctor shook his head. “He may last till the 
morning,” he said gravely, “ but he will not rally again.” 

The doctor was right enough. He lived till after 
midnight, and then he died; and he never spoke again, 
nor did he know or speak to any one of his three daugh- 
ters who sat \vatching about his bed. 

When the head of the house dies, however unsatis- 
factory and worthless he may have been in himself, 
there follows necessarily a period of chaos and disinte- 
gration in the lives of those whom the bare fact of his 
existence has hitherto kept together. In name, at least, 
he has been king in his own kingdom, and, just as the 
death of a king brings about more changes than do the 
deaths of inferior mortals, so also does the death of the 
father of a household. Gordon Forrester had been but 


THE LAST OF POOR GORDIE. 


277 


a poor feckless creature whilst he was alive, yet his life 
had been valuable, in so far that it had kept up the home; 
and his death and burial brought sudden and far-reach- 
ing changes upon his now penniless girls. 

There was the awful question of the debts, and how 
they were to be paid, which began to press upon them, 
from the very day on which their father breathed his 
last. Impossible to Gordon Forrester’s daughters to 
leave such a vital question as this to stand over until 
after the funeral, as is usually done in better regulated 
households where the children know that the dead parent 
must have acted wisely and prudently, and left all things 
in order for those who are to come after him. 

They all knew, to begin with, that they would bo 
turned out of their home — that Marshlands had only be- 
longed to their father for his life, and that they would 
have to begin the world again somewhere else. The 
question was — what would there be for them to begin it 
upon ? 

“ There will, at any rate, be the furniture and the pic- 
tures,” said Dottie. They may not be worth very much, 
but still we can keep back just enough to furnish a cot- 
tage for ourselves, and the rest will surely fetch some- 
thing.” 

“ Yes — if only the debts to the tradesmen don’t swal- 
low up that ‘something’ altogether,” remarked Millie 
grimly. 

“ Oh, perhaps we might just pay the tradesmen some- 
thing in the pound, and square them for the rest,” an- 
swered Dottie, who was her father’s own daughter. 

They were rummaging amongst the drawers of their 
father’s writing table. It was necessary that they should 
know how they stood at once, before the day of the 
funeral brought strangers into the house who would bo 
asking questions — questions, perhaps, that it would bo 
hard to answer. 

And it was whilst Dottie and Millie were thus em- 
ployed that they made one or two discoveries of a some- 
what surprising nature. To begin with, they were as- 
tonished to find fewer unpaid bills and more receipted 
ones than they had expected, and whilst they were still 
puzzling their heads as to the whys and wherefores of 

24 


278 


A BAD LOT. 


this remarkable phenomenon, they came all at once upon 
the elucidation of the mystery, in the shape of a memo- 
randum of the bill of sale on the furniture and pictures, 
made out in the name of Cecil Roscoe, in repayment of 
the sum of £360 advanced by that gentleman to Gordon 
Forrester on the above security. 

The furniture, therefore, would have to be sold — but 
it would be sold, not for their benefit, but in order to re- 
pay £360 to Cecil Roscoe ! 

Dottie and Millie looked at each other in blank dis- 
may. Their last straw was gone — they were beggars 
indeed ! 

“ This is horrible !” groaned Millie. 

“No doubt poor Gordie arranged it, thinking that 
Nell would marry Cecil, and, of course, if he had be- 
come our brother he would never have claimed the 
money, he couldn’t have been so mean. Oh, Millie, it 
certainly was enough to kill poor old Gordie, knowing 
all this, when he got the news about Nell I” 

“ Nell has behaved atrociously,” said Millie angrily. 

“Of course she couldn’t tell about this,” answered 
Bbttie. But even Dottie, who was fonder of Nell than 
Millie was, and was ready to make excuses for her — 
even Dottie could not deny that Nell would have treated 
them all better if she had played her cards more care- 
fully and cleverly. And Neil had a very bad time of it 
in those first days of mourning It was not the For- 
rester way to be silent under grievances, and Dottie and 
3Iiilie let her know exceedingly plainly that, in their 
opinion, she had not only killed her father, but had also 
reduced her sisters to beggary by her selfishness in break- 
ing off her engagement. Millie, indeed, was so violent 
and abusive that Nell declined to discuss the question 
with her. But to Dottie she did endeavour to convey a 
juster and fairer view of the situation. 

“ You don’t seem to understand, Dottie, that it was 
not I — but Cecil — who broke off the engagement. He 
declined to marry me.” 

“Then you must have done something dreadful, Nell ; 
for he was awfully in love with you at first — I never 
saw any man more spoony in my life. What have you 
done to turn him against you?” 


THE LAST OF POOR ^'GORDIE." 


279 


“ I have done nothing, Dottie — nothing on my word 
and honour. Cecil refused to believe my word, and he 
chose to fancy things that never existed ; more than that 
1 am unable to tell you.” 

“ And so,” sighed Dottie impatiently, “ for some paltry 
little quarrel you cannot even describe, and in which I 
suppose he got angry and you were obstinate, you have 
reduced us all to starvation ! Oh, Nell, what a mistake 
you have made ! Think how different everything would 
have been now, if only you had managed to keep the 
peace with him, as you might easily have done, I am 
sure. Why, Millie and I would probably have lived 
with you in London, for I daresay Cecil would have 
given us a home, and anyhow, you would have been pro- 
vided for, and there would have been two mouths to feed 
instead of three.” 

Nell had nothing to say in answer to speeches of this 
kind. She could only be silent, and endure all the re- 
proaches and the fruitless bemoanings of “ what might 
have been,” with the best grace that she could. 

And then, one day — it was the third day after her 
father’s death — Dottie did what her grandmother would 
certainly have done in her place. She sat down and 
wrote a letter to Cecil, a letter purporting to be full of 
piteous messages and entreaties from Nell, although she 
took good care not to tell Nell anything about it, and 
she begged him either to forgive Nell and to take her 
back, or else for the sake of his old love for her to wipe 
out the debt altogether, and make a free present of £360, 
to Gordon Forrester’s daughters. 

It was a disgraceful, whining, begging letter; a letter 
which, had she known of it, would have made Nell sink 
into the earth with shame and with indignation that 
such words should be written in her name, for Nell was 
as proud as she was independent. But Dottie felt no 
shame at all in the matter. If anybody had told her 
that such a letter was a disgrace, Dottie would only 
have been mildly surprised. She would only have said 
that she thought it was quite worth while trying it on ; 
Cecil might possibly be touched, and relent, if not, they 
would be no worse oif than they were before. This was 
the true Forrester nature all over ; that nature in which 


280 


A BAD LOT. 


by some miracle of fate or of ancestry, Kell had no part 
■whatever. 

And it is needless to say that Dottie failed in her 
attempt. Ko letter had ever made Cecil more intensely 
angry in all his life. He believed, indeed firmly, as 
Dottie implied, that it -was Kell who had instigated it 
and that Dottie herself was merely her mouthpiece, and 
he said to himself, for the hundredth time, that he had 
done right in ridding himself of such a woman. That 
she could stoop to such contemptible meanness, only 
disclosed a depth of infamy in her nature which shocked 
and horrified him: in fact, after this, there was scarcely 
any crime with which Cecil Eoscoe was not ready to 
credit poor Kell. Where once he had loved, he now be- 
gan to hate and to loathe. 

Dottie’s letter was never answmred ; but in due course 
of time a formal notification of the transaction between 
the late Mr. Gordon Forrester and Mr. Cecil Eoscoe was 
received by the Misses Forrester, from a London firm 
of solicitors acting in the interests of the latter gentle- 
man. 

But, long before that, poor Gordon Forrester had been 
laid to his last long rest in Marshlands churchyard. 

There appeared at the funeral, a stranger — a lawyer s 
clerk — as representative of the heir to the property, 
who happened himself to be abroad, and who was a still 
more distant cousin of the late owner than Gordon For- 
rester had been, and who, having fortunately for him- 
self, married a lady with a fortune, caused it to be given 
out that he intended to spend a certain amount of money 
on the place, in order eventually to let it on a long lease. 
And by the same train there also came down to Marsh- 
lands, on that melancholy day. Sir Eobert Forrester, 
Bart., the brother of the deceased. 

It was many, many j^ears ago since Sir Eobert had 
been to Marshlands. The last time he had come it had 
been to pay a visit to his “ bachelor” brother, as he had 
believed him to be, and it was on that memorable occa- 
sion that Gordon had sprung a veritable mine upon him 
by introducing to him a very familiar figure — that of a 
tall, showy-looking woman, with rouge on her cheeks 
and gold dye on her hair, and with two little bits of 


THE LAST OF POOR QORDIEP 


281 


children clinging to her skirts — with the playful words : 
“Your new sister-in-law, Bob — my wife, Mrs. Gordon 
Forrester.” 

Bob had shaken the dust off his feet and had gone 
away the very next morning, after a scene which he did 
not much like to think about, now that he was walking 
as chief mourner behind poor Gordie’s coffin, yet which, 
oddly enough, came back persistently to-day to his mem- 
ory. He had never been friends with his brother since 
that day, and his wife had actually cut Gordie dead in the 
street. And yet, here he was, walking bareheaded be- 
hind poor Gordie’s coffin, with a large white wreath in 
his bands; he could not help thinking how much more 
Gordie would have valued the two guineas he had spent 
upon that wreath if he had sent them to him a month 
ago. Two guineas down might have given him some 
pleasure, poor fellow — whereas the flowers did him abso- 
lutely no good at all ! 

Sir Eobert had never seen his two elder nieces since 
that memorable occasion of his visit, and he had never 
seen the third at all. He had had no opportunity of 
looking at them yet, for he only arrived just in time to 
start with the procession for the church, and they ail 
wore deep crape veils and went by themselves in another 
carriage. 

Now, as he stood by the open grave, he had one of 
them on either arm, whilst the third stood beyond her 
sisters. Naturally he was not able to investigate their 
looks at such a moment — they were all fine, tali women, 
it seemed to him, but their faces were concealed by their 
veils, and they all appeared to be crying, poor girls ! 

Sir Eobert felt very uncomfortable. If he had been 
more unhappy he would have minded it less, perhaps, 
but he was not in the least unhappy — how could he pos- 
sibly be, seeing that he had not exchanged a dozen 
words with his deceased brother within the last twenty 
years ? He was sorry for the poor girls, and he tried 
hard to cook up a little feeling on his own account ; but 
it was no use, he really could not feel anything, and so 
he had nothing to do but to look about him and to won- 
der whether there would be anything at all for his 
nieces to live upon, and, if not, what was to become of 

24 * 


282 


A BAD LOT. 


them. And then he began to look at the other people 
near him, and suddenly his wandering eyes lit upon 
some one who was standing a little apart from the 
crowd that had gathered on the opposite side of the 
open grave, into which poor Gordon Forrester’s flower- 
strewn coffin had just been lowered. 

It was a very tall woman, dressed in the garb of a 
Catholic sister of mercy, and at the sight of her Sir 
Eobert started violently. 

There was no rouge upon the cheeks and lips now, no 
dark bistre under the fine eyes, and a snow-white fold of 
linen lay across the forehead, where the gold-dyed hair 
had once curled luxuriously. Yet, for all that, he recog- 
nized her. It was Gordon Forrester’s false wife — the 
“ Geraldine de Yere” of the music hulls and the Frivolity 
Theatre. He had known her very well in those earlier 
days, before poor Gordie committed the crowning folly 
of his life by bringing her into the family — at many a 
gay supper party at his brother’s rooms in town he had 
met her, and had talked and laughed and chaffed with 
her — for it was only after Gordie had married her that 
it occurred to him to curse her, and denounced her for 
the sinful life she had led and to which he had been con- 
veniently blind, as long as she had only been his mistress. 
How he saw her once more across his brother’s grave. 

When the ceremony was at an end, and whilst the 
weeping girls were slowly walking down the church- 
yard path towards the carriages. Bob Forrester went 
over to where that sister of charity was still standing 
alone, gazing sadly down into the grave. 

“ What are you doing here?” he said to her roughly. 

“ I have only come to see the last of poor Gordie, Sir 
Eobert. May I not even be present at his funeral ?” she 
asked sadl3^ 

“ Why are you masquerading in this costume ?” he con- 
tinued, being probably unable to give any pertinent 
answer to her question. 

“ It is no masquerade, Sir Eobert — it is my usual 
dress — I have been for many years past in a sisterhood 
at Birmingham.” 

“ Eepenting of your sins, perhaps?” he sneered. 

“ Yes j I have tried to do so,” she replied gently. 


THE LAST OF POOR ^ GORDIE.'* 


283 


“Look here,” he began, feeling a little nonplussed by 
these low-voiced replies, “ 1 won’t have you go forcing 
yourself upon those girls — my nieces — tiiey are not to 
be upset by your claiming any — any sort of relationship 
in fact, or anything of that kind — do you hear?” 

The sister of mercy looked up at him in mild surprise. 

“ You do not seem to understand, Sir Robert, that 1 
have long been dead to the world and its relationships. 
I have no children — only the soul of my dead husband, 
for which it is my pious duty to offer up prayers. You 
need not be afraid, 1 shall never trouble your nieces. 
See, for your part, that you do your duty to them.” 

She turned from him and went slowly away by an- 
other path ; and Bob Forrester went his way too, 
towards the little crowd at the lych gate in the opposite 
direction. 

He was verj' silent, thinking about many things, dur- 
ing the short drive back to the house, but chiefly about 
those last words which the sister of mercy had sj^oken 
to him. 

“ See that you do your duty to them.” 

Thej^ haunted him a little, those words. They 
haunted him still more when, half an hour later, he saw 
his three nieces divested of those hideous crape bonnets 
and veils which had hitherto rendered their faces in- 
visible. 

When he came more clearly to discriminate between 
Dorothea and Millicent, his elder nieces, whom he had 
seen as babies, and Eleanor, the youngest, whom he had 
never seen before, a new thought entered his mind. 

“By Jove!” he said to himself admiringly, for even 
at his respectable time of life he had still a keen eye 
for beauty. “By Jove! but the girl is positively 
beautiful !” 

And then it seemed to him that it might be not a very 
possible but also a very pleasant thing to do his duty 
towards such a lovely young woman as this. 

If only my Lady Forrester at home could be brought 
to see it m the same light I 


284 


A BAD LOT. 


CHAPTER XXXL 

THE SISTERS PART COMPANY. 

A COMFORTABLE-LOOKING red-brick house, standing in 
the hollow between high hills that are wooded to their 
summits, with sloping lawns and garden beds gay with 
flowers in front of it, and a trout stream gurgling over 
shining pebbles beyond the gardens. Beyond, again, a 
green park, studded with clumps of fine beeches and 
giant elms, and an avenue of lime trees, whose lower- 
most branches sweep the green turf beneath them, lead- 
ing all the way down from the house to the lodge gate. 
This is Ringwood Manor, the country residence of Sir 
Robert and Lady Forrester, and here it is that we are 
to find Eleanor Forrester again. 

For her uncle had offered her a home. Very soon 
after her father’s death, he had written to her and had 
proposed that she should take up her abode with him 
and become her aunt’s amanuensis, for the not very 
magnificent sum of fifty pounds a year. 

Somehow or other. Sir Robert had managed to con- 
vince his wife that it had become their duty as Christians 
to do something for those poor girls — his brother’s 
orphaned and penniless daughters. 

Lady Forrester, who was nothing if she was not a 
Christian, admitted the claim, but could not see why the 
youngest, and not the eldest, daughter should be the 
object of their charity. 

“ 1 don’t think you would like the elder ones so well, 
my dear Catherine,” had answered her spouse dis- 
creetly. 

“ But was it not this one who was engaged to be mar- 
ried, and who jilted the young man in some disgraceful 
manner?” persisted her ladyship. 

“ I am not sure,” replied Sir Bob evasively and menda- 
ciously, “ I rather think it was the second girl.” For 
he was a much hen-pecked individual, and stood in great 
awe of his wife. 


THE SISTERS PART COMPANV. 


285 


“Well, of course, as Evangeline is only sixteen and 
won’t come out for another year and a half, I cannot 
make any very great objection, if she were older it would 
be different — for to have another young lady in the 
house standing in the light of my own daughter would 
be insufferable ; however, so long as she goes away before 
Evangeline grows up ” 

“ Oh, she will be married long before that,” cried the 
husband incautiously. 

“Why?” inquired his wife drily. “Is she so extraor- 
dinarily good-looking then ? Men do not marry pen- 
niless girls unless they are very handsome.” 

“ Oh — so, so ! I think I told you that she was a pretty 
girl?” 

“ You did not. Bob ! but I begin to understand.” She 
not only understood, but was considerably disconcerted 
when Nell appeared on the scenes. This tall and beau- 
tiful young woman took her breath away, she looked 
like a queen, not in the least like a poor relation. 

Several things had combined to make Nell accept her 
uncle’s offer; strange things that had somehow come to 
pass and that had left her indeed no other alterna- 
tive. 

It was about a fortnight after their father’s death, 
when the girls were beginning to pack up, preparatory 
to turning out of the house, that Dottie came one day 
rather mysteriously into her sister’s room. 

“ Nell,” she began, with a queer hesitation in her voice 
and a little timid smile not habitual to big, bold, noisy 
Dottie, “ I have something to tell you — something very 
extraordinary — it is the most extraordinary thing in 
short that has ever happened.” 

Nell looked interested ; she could not guess in the least 
what was coming. 

“ Well, the fact is,” said Dottie, getting very red and 
stammering a good deal, “ I — I don’t at all know why — 
and I am sure nobody could have been more astonished 
than I was — in fact I said directly, ‘ Who on earth told 
you to do such a mad thing ?’ For, you see, one would 
think nobody in their senses could possibly be such 
a fool as to want it of their own accord, unless, of 
course, some other fellow had put it into his head ; but 


286 


A BAD LOT. 


the extraordinary thing is, that no one seems to have 
done that at all !” 

“ My dear Dottie,” said Kell, beginning to laugh, “ what 
in the world are you driving at ? I can’t make head or 
tail of all this ! What has happened ?” 

“Why — it’s just this, Kell; Poppet has asked me to 
marry him.” 

“ Dottie !” 

“ You may well look astonished. I was, I can tell you. 
I burst out laughing and told him not to be such a silly 
ass.” 

“ But I don’t think him an ‘ ass’ at all, Dottie. I think 
Mr. Popham a very lucky fellow.” 

“Do you?” said Dottie dubiously and rather sheep- 
ishly. 

“ All I want to understand, dear, is what Mr. Popham 
proposes to marry you upon ? I thought he was so 
poor ?” 

“ Well, you see, he has got his pay, for of course he 
couldn’t afford to leave the army — in point of fact I 
should not wish him to give up his profession, and I 
shall like to live in the regiment, it will just suit me — 
and then he has had a bit of luck lately; an uncle he 
never saw has just died in Australia, leavirig a thousand 
pounds apiece to him and to each of his brothers and 
sisters. And then again, he has been just ordered to 
leave the depot here and to join his regiment out at 
Poonah, and he is going out in three weeks’ time. In 
India, you see, Kell, they get higher pay. I think I shall 
like India ; it will be such a complete change, and they 
have very jolly race meetings sometimes out there, I 
hear.” 

“ My dear Dottie, you don’t mean to say that you are 
thinking of going out to India — in three weeks’ time? of 
being married by then ?” cried Kell in amazement. 

Dottie nodded. “ Why not ?” she replied complacently. 
“We can get spliced up very quietly, Jim and I — wo 
don’t want any fuss or display. And besides,” added 
Dottie naively,’ “ I couldn’t possibly let him go out to 
India without me ; for you see I am six years older than 
he is — and not a wonderful catch as you will admit — 
and ten to one he would see some other younger girl out 


THE SISTERS PART COMPANY. 


287 


there, and take a fancy to her, and then I should lose 
him altogether. And, I do think, Nell, you ought to 
see from your own experience what a mistake long en- 
gagements are ; men are not very constant, you know, 
and delay only gives them time to think better of it. 
‘ Strike whilst the iron is hot,* say I.” 

As there was no gainsaying the truth and aptness of 
this maxim, Nell became quickly reconciled to the idea 
of Dottle’s hasty marriage. 

Out of the wreck of their fortunes there had been res- 
cued a couple of hundred pounds to be divided between 
the three sisters, and Dottie, having just before her 
father’s death fortunately pulled off twenty pounds suc- 
cessfully over a country steeplechase, happened in this 
way to have a little ready money wherewith to purchase 
for herself a modest but necessary outfit. 

One morning, therefore, about a week before the day 
appointed for Gordon Forrester’s daughters to turn out 
of the old house where they had spent their lives, Dottie 
and her two sisters walked very quietly down together 
to the parish church. 

All three wore the same black dresses in which they 
had been clad at their father’s funeral, only that each of 
them had — on this occasion — enlivened the sombre gar- 
ments by a bunch of coloured flowers at the neck, and 
the bride had hunted up a last year’s white straw bon- 
net, wore a new pair of grey gloves, and carried a large 
bouquet in her hand, the gift of the bridegroom. 

The vicar, behind the altar rails, and Messrs. Popham 
and Drake in front of them, awaited their arrival, whilst 
the old clerk — who had seen them all baptized — took his 
place proudly behind them, with a red peony in the 
button-hole of his Sunday coat, in order to give Dottie 
away. 

After the ceremony, they all walked back together to 
Marshlands to a frugal lunch. Then came a frantic 
finishing off of the packing, hurried good-byes, a few 
tears, and many smiles and kisses, and very soon Dottie 
and her husband were driven away quietly enough, in 
the shabby brougham which the bridegroom had hired 
from Fenchester for the occasion, on the first stage of 
their long journey to India. 


288 


A BAD LOT. 


After her departure, Millie and Nell were left to con- 
sider their own future. They did not hit it off particu- 
larly well together, these two, and Nell had certainly no 
wish to set up house alone with Millie. It speedily ap- 
peared, however, that Millie had no such intention ; she 
had made her own plans long ago, quite independently 
of either of her sisters. 

She had a scheme for making her fortune. For a 
long time past her love of animals had led her to dabble 
in the veterinary science, and she had lately invented 
an ointment of an entirely new kind for the treatment 
of diseased hoofs in horses. This stuff — to which she 
had given the magnificent name of “Forrester's Non- 
pareil Golconda Hoof Ointment” — she had concocted 
herself on several occasions secretly in a saucepan over 
the back kitchen fire, and what were the component 
parts thereof she would reveal to no living soul. She 
had already contrived to pot a considerable quantity of 
it, and had labelled it with printed labels. She had ex. 
perimentally treated one or two horses in the immediate 
neighbourhood with it, and in every instance had met 
with a marked success — so much so, that she was now 
quite certain that she would be able to make a good 
thing out of her invention. 

There happened to be a very good opening in Fen- 
chester for an enterprise of the kind. The only veter- 
inary sui’geon was acknowledged on all sides to be an 
exceedingly stupid and inefficient man, and was now 
getting on in years, and no younger man had as yet pre- 
sented himself to take up his falling mantle. People 
took their horses farther off — to the next county town, 
twelve miles away — to be doctored ; and although Millie 
was aware that she was entering the ranks as an unccr- 
tificated quack, she was quite sure that if she had one or 
two successful cases to begin with, she would be able, 
very soon, to establish a reputation for her ointment. 

When she told Nell what she proposed to do, every- 
thing was already in train and all was cut and dried for 
her venture. Without saying a word to any one, she 
had engaged two ground-floor rooms and a large back 
garden in one of the main streets in the town of Fen- 
chester, and a bedroom for herself at the top of the 


THE SISTERS PART COMPANF. 


289 


same house. She had also secured an office boy to sit in 
the small outer room, which was to be the shop, and to 
show those who wished to consult her into the larger 
room beyond. The back garden she proposed to turn 
into a hospital for sick dogs, as well as a home for lost 
ones — dogs and their ailments being a specialty with her 
— and a shed was already being built against the further 
wall for their accommodation. 

“ And you intend then to turn yourself into a sort of 
female vet ?’’ said Nell blankly and with some dismay, 
when all the details of this extraordinary scheme were 
disclosed to her. 

“ Certainly, and I don’t see why I should not do very 
well,” answered Millie rather defiantly. 

“ But, my dear Millie, won’t it be a dreadful life for 
you? I cannot conceive anything more dreary and 
dismal.” 

“ Oh, not at all. I shall have all my soldier boys 
dropping in and out upon mo at all hours — and I shall 
make my own sitting-room, behind the shop, very snug 
and cosy ; you must come and see it, it is a very nice 
room ; the window opens on to the garden, and there 
will be the dogs, you know — my own dogs, of course, 
as well as any others that may be left with me to cure 
or to take care of. Then I shall have lots of fun in the 
winter, when the hunting begins ; 1 can always hire 
something or get a mount, and perhaps I shall take to 
breaking in horses for ladies’ riding, in addition. I have 
lots of irons in the fire, you see. I am not at all sure that 
I shall not be able to afford to keep a hunter for myself by 
next hunting season. 1 have made out that each pot of 
the ointment costs me exactly fivepence halfpenny to 
make, and I am going to sell it at three and sixpence a 
pot, so you can just calculate for yourself what my 
profits will be ; and I have got no less than a hundred 
and ten pots of it in hand now — they are all going upon 
the shelves in the front shop to-morrow — and I expect 
they will go off like wildfire. The Field has already 
written me up — the ointment, I mean — of course, you 
never read The Fields my dear, and even if you had 
seen the article about the ‘Golconda,’ you would not 
have known that I had anything to do with it. Tooley 
^ t 25 


290 


A BAD LOT. 


wrote it, he knows somebody on the staff of The Field, 
who got his letter put in for him ; it has done me an 
awful lot of good already. I had twenty-three orders 
within the first week after it came out, and now 1 am 
spending that money in advertising the ‘ Golconda’ both 
in The Field and all the other sporting papers, every 
week.” 

“ Do you think it is a very nice occupation for a lady, 
Millie?” persisted Nell doubtfully. 

“ I am sure I neither know nor care, my dear. What 
has being ‘ a lady’ done for me hitherto ? or for any of 
us for the matter of that ? I’m not giving up any social 
advantages that 1 know of by going into a business of 
this kind ! These blessed stuck-up frumjDs and prudes 
of women about here have taken precious good care to 
close their doors in our faces all along, and now that 
your engagement is broken off, everybody charitably gives 
you credit for having done something disgraceful, and 
the few people who had thawed a little to us for a time 
— on your account — have now frozen themselves back 
again into icicles. Do you suppose 1 am going to alter 
my plans to please any one of them ? If I choose to go 
to the public balls, I can go just the same — 1 am certain 
to have lots of partners, my pals are not at all likely to 
throw me over because I sell ointment.” 

Nell was thus left to contemplate her own future 
plans somewhat perplexedly. 

“You, I daresay, will go and live with Granny,” 
Millie had suggested airily and lightly. And perhaps 
that is actually what Nell would have had to do — to beg 
for a home from her grandmother — had not her uncle’s 
letter at this juncture opened a new, and she believed a 
better way out of the dilemma. 

Nell wanted to leave the old life and its associations 
behind her; she had shrunk from the thought of that 
silent, dingy house in Wimpole Street, where so much 
ill-fortune had befallen her in the past and where she 
did not believe there could possibly lie any profitable 
life for her in the future. Old Lady Forrester would 
very probably be glad to give her a home, for she was 
very fond of Nell in her own way, but she did not need 
her in the least. Her old lady’s-maid looked after her 


THE SISTERS PART COMPANF. 


291 


comforts and her health, whilst her games of patience or 
of cribbage, and the ancient beaux of her younger days 
who came to have a gossip with her over her tea cups, 
made up the sum of the occupations of the old lady’s 
life. She did not require anything else, there was there- 
fore no duty that Nell could have rendered her; and, 
moreover, at the bottom of her heart, the girl shrank 
from a perpetual intercourse with the worldly maxims, 
cold cynicism, and the unscrupulous and mercenary con- 
siderations which ruled Lady Forrester’s existence, and 
which were as much a part of her being as the air she 
breathed. Nell feared that were she to be too much in 
such an atmosphere, she might herself, one day, become 
such another as her grandmother. “ It is in me, I verily 
believe,” she said to herself grimly. “Already I believe 
in nobody, and see false motives and bad natures in other 
people. Who knows if in time I might not become as 
bad as Granny, and grow deceitful and hard and callous 
as she is.” 

And then came her uncle’s letter and invitation. 

Here at any rate was something definite — a new life 
that might be cleaner and wholesomer than any she had 
lived hitherto — a life wherein she might shake herself 
free of all the old influences and start afresh under purer 
skies. 

“ I do not know quite what an ‘ amanuensis’ has to 
do,” she wrote back to her uncle, “ but I will help Aunt 
Catherine in any way that I can, and I accept your kind 
offer of a home and a salary gladly, and very grate- 
fully.” 

So it was, that when Millie set up herself and her pots 
of “ Golconda Ointment” in the ground-floor rooms in 
Strand Street, Fenchester, Nell, and her two trunks, 
which contained all her worldly possessions, set off by 
herself to begin the world anew, under Sir Eobert For- 
rester’s roof at Eingwood Manor. 


292 


A BAB LOT. 


CHAPTEK AXXIl. 

A NOTICE IN THE “TIMES.” 

Nell Forrester’s life at Eingwood was the quietest 
and most tranquil existence that could possibly be con- 
ceived. 

The peace of it indeed, and the monotony, almost 
amounted to stagnation, and it took her many weeks to 
become accustomed to it. 

This new life, where meals and occupation succeeded 
one another in unbroken regularity, where each member 
of the household seemed to speak and move as though 
actuated by clock work, where to make an original re- 
mark would have been to create dismay, and where un- 
punctuality was looked upon as an actual sin, bewildered 
Nell almost as much as it startled her. 

Sometimes at first, indeed, she felt sure that she could 
no longer be herself, and that her soul must somehow 
have become re-incarnated in the personality of some 
one else, so strange and so unreal seemed everything 
about her. 

Her very name was no longer the same; that old 
familiar little name of “ Nell,” that had grown up with 
her and stuck to her from childhood, was never given to 
her now-a-days. From the first she was always called 
“ Eleanor” at Eingwood. The very place itself seemed 
to oppress and choke her. The high wooded hills that 
rose on every side of the house were strange and uncon- 
genial to her; she could not breathe in these narrow 
valleys. She pined for the wide wind-swept spaces of 
her native fens ; for the broad expanse of sky and cloud, 
and for the salt-laden breezes that used to come whistling 
over the water meadows from the low shores of the east- 
ern sea. At Eingwood, she felt cramped and imprisoned ; 
there was at first a perpetual longing to escape upon her 
that used to lead her to take long solitary climbs up the 
steep hills. If she could only look over the summits on 
to the wide hidden world beyond! But, alas, when she 


A NOTICE IN THE “ TIMES.*’ 293 

arrived panting and breathless upon the hill tops, it was 
only to find a land of more hills and more woods, more 
deep and narrow valleys, which bounded the view in 
every direction. After a while, indeed, she grew to love 
this country too, and to own that it was beautiful, with 
a peculiar beauty all its own. For Nell had such an in- 
stinctive sympathy with Nature, that she could not re- 
main blind for long to the charms of these thick shady 
woods that crept up the hill sides, with the deep seques- 
tered glades that lay between them. Yet, at first, even 
their beauty only made the strangeness of her new life 
seem more intolerable and more bewildering. She had, 
however, plenty to do, and very little time to indulge 
either in dreams or in regrets. For if she had never 
been rightly able to discover wherein lay the exact 
duties of an “ amanuensis,” she had at any rate found 
out that there were a great many ways in which, as a 
poor relation, she was expected to earn her food, as well 
as her modest stipend of twelve pounds ten a quarter. 

Nell came to the conclusion that her aunt set her to 
do all the things which were beneath the dignity of the 
lady’s-maid and the footman. Her first duty in the 
morning was to clean out the aviary and feed the birds. 
Once a week she washed Lady Forrester’s Maltese ter- 
rier, and every day it was her business to cut up the 
dinners of this animal and of its companion, a handsome 
Persian cat. As she was fond of animals, she did not 
in the least object to this branch of her duties. It was 
more irksome to her to be the instrument of Lady For- 
rester’s charities in the parish, which were numerous and 
varied; she was expected to carry cans of broth and 
beef tea to the old women at the almshouses, to dis- 
tribute bread and coal tickets from door to door, to act 
as librarian to the village library, to cut out flannel 
petticoats and shirts of unbleached calico, and to assist 
at the meetings of the “ Girls’ Friendly Society.” Besides 
all this, she arranged the flowers, wrote the menus, fetched 
and carried shawls and cushions, ran errands to the gen- 
eral shop at the post-ofiice, and once a week she was sent 
by train into the country town with a long list of com- 
missions to execute at the grocer’s and the linen draper’s 
and the ironmonger’s. In short, she found that she was 

25 * 


294 


A BAD LOT. 


expected to make herself generally useful in all sorts of 
ways. 

Yet nobody was in the least unkind to her, and she 
could not reasonably complain of neglect, or of un- 
friendliness. Lady Forrester always spoke gently and 
considerately to her, and never forgot to say “ thank 
you” every time she did anything for her. 

Major Pryor had once called Lady Forrester ugly, and 
had passed a deteriorating remark upon the shape of her 
nose. He had perhaps been justified in his uncompli- 
mentary remarks, for Lady Forrester could never, even 
in early youth, have been good-looking. She was a hard, 
angular, bony woman, with high shoulders and high 
cheek-bones, and there was undoubtedly an undue eleva- 
tion in the bridge of her nasal organ which might war- 
rant that irreverent simile to the nose of the rhinoceros 
which the worthy major had applied to it. Yet, in spite 
of her ugliness. Lady Forrester looked a lady — there was 
at any rate nothing common or under-bred, either in her 
appearance or her manners. 

She ordered her household well and prudentl^^, and 
ruled it with a rod of iron. Her servants did their 
work, her children did their lessons, and her charities 
were carried on vigorously and conscientiously, without 
ostentation or display. She was energetic and active, 
and she expected every one else about her to be the 
same. She nourished a scarcely veiled contempt for her 
indolent, easy-going husband, who loved to dawdle his 
life away over a novel in winter, and in summer time to 
wander along the trout stream with his rod, for the 
whole of the long lazy afternoons. 

Hell would gladly have been her uncle’s companion on 
these occasions, but, as a matter of fact, she saw very 
little of him, a fact which she regretted, for she liked 
him, and he was inclined to be indulgent to her for the 
sake of her lovely face and tall graceful figure, which 
excited his admiration; but his wife took care that he 
had very little opportunity of fraternizing with his 
niece. She was duly jealous of Hell’s beauty and grace, 
and although she was a just woman, she had within her 
those ineradicable feminine qualities which render a 
plain woman sore and angry at the attention which is 


A NOTICE IN THE TIMES. 


295 


attracted by her better favoured sisters. From the first, 
Lady Forrester determined that Nell must be kept in 
the background ; her husband, poor foolish creature, 
would no doubt have brought her lorward. He would 
have liked to have seen her amongst his guests at dinner, 
and would ha/e taken her out to those dull and dreary 
festivities named garden parties, with which, in summer 
time, in common with all other country districts, the 
neighbourhood abounded. Sir Eobert, in short, would 
have gladly treated Nell as an elder daughter, and would 
have delighted in the admiration which she would cer- 
tainly have aroused. 

But Lady Forrester would have nothing of the kind. 
She put her foot down upon all such nonsense from the 
first. For Evangeline’s sake in the future, she told her 
husband, it would not do to bring this penniless niece too 
much forward ; but, if the whole truth be told, it was 
also somewhat on her own account as well ; for to be over- 
shadowed in her own county by the superior attractions 
of a poor dependant, would not have been at all agree- 
able to Lady Forrester. So Nell was kept in the back- 
ground, hard at work at her numerous little drudging 
duties, and no one saw very much of her beyond the 
limits of the park and village. 

She had nothing to do with her cousins — they had 
their governess and lived their own orderly life, inde- 
pendent of her. There were three daughters, of whom 
Evangeline was the eldest, and one younger boy, who 
was at school. Evangeline, despite her poetical name, 
was not in the least poetical to look at. She was an un- 
couth, awkward girl, very like her mother : a good, but 
ugly and entirely uninteresting maiden of sixteen. Nell 
used to watch her young cousin, with a certain pity, as 
she plodded through her dailj^ tasks ; toiling patiently 
over her lesson books, strumming unmusically at her 
music, or going through manifold unpleasant contortions 
with a black-board and a chest-expander, and she remem- 
bered, with an amused sense of the contrast, what her 
own life had been at sixteen. 

At Evangeline’s age, no one had taken care of Nell. 
Nobody had taught her anything, and she had been left 
entirely to her own resources, with the result that she 


296 


A BAD LOT. 


had already gone through that fatal experience "which 
had turned her from a child into a woman. 

Well, temptation of that kind was not likely to come 
in Evangeline’s way I She was safe, at any rate, from so 
stormy an opening chapter of life, saved both by her 
careful bringing up and also by her lack of beauty from 
the things which had shipwrecked her own career. 
Nell used to catch herself wondering whether she and 
Evangeline would be judged one day by the self-same 
standard. 

Often, during the first few months after her father’s 
death, Nell had pondered and mused over the unfathom- 
able mystery of Julian Temple’s entire and incomprehen- 
sible silence. No word nor sign whatever from him had 
come to her. He seemed to have passed entirely out of 
her existence , and yet he must surely have heard, not 
only that her engagement to Cecil was at an end, but 
also that she had lost her father. The latter event, at 
any rate, might, she thought, have elicited some line of 
sympathy and regret from him, however brief and for- 
mal. That he should not approach her in this way, at 
least, seemed to her to be strange indeed. She could 
only account for it by the supposition that, having 
heard Cecil’s version of her broken engagement, he had 
adopted his friend’s harsh and unjust condemnation of 
her, and believed her now to be utterly unworthy of his 
regard. 

Unhappy as this thought made her, she grew in time, 
and by the force of circumstances, to resign herself to it 
with a dull apathy. The cynicism which had become 
part of her being helped her to say to herself, hardly 
and bitterly : 

“ There should be no wonder about it — he is only like 
the rest, I suppose. Men are always unjust and hard to 
the women who love them. Even their love is nothing 
but selfishness, and from the very moment that love be- 
comes an inconvenience to himself — who so clever as a 
man in shaking off the bonds that are a discomfort to 
him !” 

So she told herself that Julian Temple was only an 
incident of her past life, which it would bo true wisdom 
on her part to leave behind and to forget. 


A NOTICE IN THE “ TIMES.'' 


297 


And so the long summer glory drew to an end, and 
after that the golden tints of autumn decked the woods 
with new brilliance, and these again faded in their turn, 
until in October there came one piece of news to Nell 
Forrester — one echo from the outer world which reached 
her faintly in the silence and solitude of her peaceful 
country life. 

For she read one morning, in the first column of the 
Times newspaper, the announcement of Cecil Eoscoe’s 
marriage to Ida Yincent. 

He had not taken long then to forget her and console 
himself! But why had he married Ida Yincent? That 
was what puzzled her. She remembered Miss Yincent 
very well indeed ; she had thought her a plain-featured 
and uninteresting little woman, who had talked to her 
in a somewhat offensive and disagreeable manner on that 
memorable evening when she had dined in Eutland Gate, 
and when Julian Temple had taken her down to dinner. 

Nell tried to recall the conversation that had taken 
place between Miss Yincent and herself after dinner 
that evening. She remembered well that she had some- 
what annoyed and ruffled her, by her constant references 
to her extreme intimacy with Cecil and his family; so 
much so, that at the time she had wondered why this 
young lady had gone out of her way to talk so disagree- 
ably to her. Afterwards, with a little natural suspicion 
in her mind, she had questioned Cecil about this Miss 
Yincent, who had so ostentatiously proclaimed herself to 
be his dearest and oldest friend, but Cecil had betrayed 
a total indifference towards this companion of his youth. 

“Oh, poor little Ida!” he had said carelessly; “she is 
quite harmless — a good little soul, I believe. My mother 
and my aunt make a great pet of her; she rather bores 
me, I confess, for I have never been able to see what 
they can find in her. I always have thought her per- 
fectly amiable, but utterly uninteresting.” 

That answer had satisfied Nell, that whatever might 
have prompted Miss Yincent’s distinctly unpleasant and 
aggressive remarks to herself, it could not at any rate 
have been jealousy, for Cecil had evidently never taken 
the faintest interest in his mother’s young protegee. 

Now, however, in the light of this most unforeseen 


298 


A BAD LOT. 


marriago, the matter began to assume a new aspect to 
her. Frequently, when we come to look back upon past 
events of our lives, with the dispassionate judgment 
which comes to us with time and with distance, so that 
we are able to see things with the clearness, not of 
actors, but of lookers on ; these past events appear to 
us with an altogether different complexion to that with 
which they were endued at the time. Nell began to 
perceive now the meaning of the stedfast opposition 
which bad been shown towards her by Cecil’s relations. 
No doubt they had wanted him to marry Miss Vincent. 
She remembered now that the fact of her being a con- 
siderable heiress had somehow come to her knowledge, 
and it was on account of her money, doubtless, that they 
wished her to become his wife. They had very likely 
worked and striven and toiled by all the means in their 
power to bring this thing about, and the girl herself had 
been evidently perfectly willing. AVhat a blow then to 
all their schemes and plans his sudden engagement to 
herself must have been ! No wonder that Cecil’s 
mother and aunt had disliked her and treated her as an 
interloper, and that they had done their utmost to exag- 
gerate and to make the worst of all the objections to 
the marriage that they could get hold of. And no won- 
der, too, that Ida Vincent, who had perhaps set her 
heart upon him, had been unable to conceal her spite 
and her mortification from her successful rival. 

And, then again, was it not through her acquaintance 
with Miss Vincent that Mrs. Ilartwood bad been able to 
relate her little history about Colonel Barley and her- 
self to Cecil’s mother and aunt ? 

All at once, too, Nell recollected the painted sofa- 
cushion in Mrs. Eoscoe’s drawing-room, and the coffee 
that had been accidentally spilt on it, which had led to 
the mention of the clergyman’s widow who supported 
herself by painting on satin and who had given lessons 
to Miss Vincent in her art. 

Of course, that clergyman’s widow had been none 
other than Mrs. Hartwood. She had been dimly con- 
scious of it at the time, she remembered, and now the 
various pieces of the puzzle began to dove-tail them- 
selves together with an extraordinary distinctness. 


AMONGST THE ALPS. 


299 


It was Ida Yincent then, who, with the help of Mrs. 
Hart wood, had plotted and schemed to ruin her with 
Cecil-r-and now she had married him. 

She had no doubt loved him all along and had been 
bent upon discrediting her to him, and having success- 
fully achieved her object, she had evidently caught his 
heart at a rebound. 

It was all clear as daylight to her now. 

“ Poor Cecil !” thought Nell compassionately, when 
she had puzzled all this out in her own mind ; and it is 
possible that she had never pitied anybody so sincerely 
in her life before. 


CHAPTEE XXXIIL 

AMONGST THE ALPS. 

There had been, not unnaturally, much rejoicing in 
Eutland Gate — carefully repressed, however, into a de- 
cent show of outward sympathy — over the abrupt ter- 
mination of Cecil Eoscoe’s engagement. 

He had said as little about it as he could — and that 
little had been spoken to his mother — and he had re- 
frained from entering into any details of the whys and 
wherefores of it even to her. 

“ Do you mean to tell me that shameless and ungrate- 
ful creature has jilted you?” inquired his mother with 
hot indignation, when first he had communicated his 
news to her. 

“Nothing of the sort,” Cecil had replied shortly and 
irritably. “She has not jilted me at all, and pray do 
not call her names; it is by mutual consent that we 
have ended the engagement.” 

“ Well, I am deeply and truly thankful I” murmured 
his mother. 

“ Then show your thankfulness, my dear mother, by 
never alluding to the subject again. It must be sufficient 
for you to know that I am not going to marry Miss 
Forrester ; pray forbear from annoying me by questions 
and surmises about it.” 


300 


A BAD LOT. 


Afterwards, as was natural, the mother and Mrs. Tor- 
rens talked the matter over fully and exhaustively. 

“ Depend upon it, Louisa,” said the latter lady, with a 
note of triumph in her voice, “ depend upon it, that he 
has found her out! I was certain he would. He has 
no doubt discovered something fresh against her. Ah, 
my dear, bad blood, as I have always told you, can never 
be eradicated ; it is quite hopeless to expect a dove to be 
hatched in a serpent’s nest.” 

Mrs. Eoscoe agreed with a sigh that such a zoological 
miracle did not come within the range of the possibili- 
ties of natural history. “ We can only be thankful that 
my dear boy’s eyes have been opened in time,” she mur- 
mured. 

“ As I always foresaw that they must be,” said Mrs. 
Torrens, almost with delight. “ It has been all ordered 
for the best, my dear : The Lord watches over his own ; 
and to suppose that a creature born of such a stock as 
that would be permitted to enter a respectable and God- 
fearing family, was to doubt the omnipotence of the 
Divine Mercy.” 

“ There may be a chance for dear Ida, noif?,” observed 
the mother ; “ her money, you know, Selina, would bo 
such a help to my dear boy.” 

“ Undoubtedly there is a chance, my dear,” assented 
Mrs. Torrens decidedly, for her piety did not prevent the 
good lady from taking a most unheavenly interest in 
things purely productive of mundane advantages. “ We 
must have patience, and place our trust and confidence in 
One above, and play our cardscarefully and judiciously.” 

The days went on — Cecil came home night after 
night looking worn and ill. He happened to be unusually 
busy, and for some time his mother, who observed with 
dismay that he grew paler and thinner every day, be- 
lieved that it was the extra stress of business that was 
telling upon his health. But after a few weeks she began 
to perceive that there must be something more than 
hard work to account for her son’s haggard and care- 
worn appearance. He began to throw up his social en- 
gagements, he lost his spirits and his appetite, complained 
of violent headaches, and of entire sleeplessness at nights. 
The fact was, that Cecil was a prey to severe mental 


AMONGST THE ALPS. 


301 


suffering. He believed, indeed, that he had done right 
in rejecting Nell, that she was false and bad, and utterly 
unworthy of an honest man’s affection, and he did not 
for one moment desire to recall the past, for Hottie’s in- 
judicious letter had probably quenched altogether any 
reactionary weakness that might have lingered in his 
heart. 

But his beliefs and his determination had nevertheless 
cost him dear. A man does not go through such an ex- 
perience unscathed. He suffered acutely, both in his 
heart and in his vanity — and the greater of these two in 
the composition of that animal we call man, is, most un- 
doubtedly, the latter. For you may wound a man’s 
heart, and he will recover from the blow — often, indeed, 
with a celerity that is positively amazing — but if you 
wound his vanity it is quite another matter, and he will 
carry the scars of that injury with him to his grave. 

In Cecil’s case the wound was deep and sore, and the 
immediate result of it was a collapse of his bodily health. 

There came a day when he broke down altogether. Ho 
came home in a cab early one afternoon, looking more 
dead than alive, and went to bed, telling his mother to 
send at once for the family doctor, for that he had thrown 
up a very important case for which he was retained, 
knowing that he was in for a serious illness. 

His prognostics were right. He was desperately ill 
with typhoid fever, and for many days it was uncertain 
whether he would live or die. 

At length, however, a naturally strong constitution 
pulled him through, and to Mrs. Eoscoe’s most unspeaka- 
ble thankfulness, he was pronounced to be out of danger. 

The poor woman had been half distracted during the 
worst part of his illness. He was her only child — her 
pride, her joy, her delight — and if she lost him, she lost, 
indeed,, her all ! As she sat by his bedside during the 
long watches of the night, through those first days of 
high fever and delirium — as she listened to the rapid, 
incoherent words that poured in a meaningless torrent 
from his lips — words that dwelt ever upon his lost hap- 
piness — upon Nell, who was so dear and yet so false — 
Nell, whom he addressed in the fondest accents of love, or 
upbraided in terms of wildest reproach — Nell, whom he 

26 


302 


A BAD LOT. 


alternately blessed and implored to come to him, or 
cursed and reviled with foul and violent words — the 
poor mother grew to understand that it was this woman 
who, for good or ill, had reigned supreme in her son’s 
heart, and whose loss had brought him to the very 
brink of the grave. 

“ He might have married her ten times over, sooner 
than that I should lose him altogether,” she sobbed 
broken-heartedly to her sister-in-law, during those dark 
days when his life hung in the balance. Yet, even 
then, Mrs. Torrens had replied hardly and unsymj^a- 
ihetically : 

“My dear, that is sheer weakness on your part ! It 
is far better that his body should perish than that hia 
soul should be lost altogether, as it would undoubtedly 
have been had he thrown himself away upon that bad 
creature ; and how bad she must have been, we can 
judge now from the poor fellow’s delirious wanderings. 
That story we heard about her, you see, was perfectly 
true.” 

For thus much had Cecil unconsciously betrayed to the 
watchers by his sick bed. 

At length the worst was over; the fever was spent 
and left him, and there was only the weakness of conva- 
lescence to contend wdth. 

The summer was now far advanced, and the season 
w^as one of unusual drought and heat. 

“As soon as he can travel, he must go away,” said the 
doctors who had attended him through his illness. “ We 
must get him awmy. There must be no return to work 
for months; he must have bracing mountain air and 
perfect rest, as soon as he is well enough to be moved.” 

It was decided that he should go, travelling by easy 
stages, to a mountain health-resort in Switzerland. 
Mrs. Eoscoe, of course, was to accompany him. Cecil 
was pleased with the idea ; he longed to get away, to 
change the stifling atmosphere of London for the snow- 
laden breezes of the Alps, to get rid of the irksome 
restraints of the sick room and to shake off the habits 
of the invalid. 

He clung to his mother much in these days of weak- 
ness. He had always been a good son to her, and her 


AMONGST THE ALPS. 303 

unwearying devotion to him during his illness drew him 
nearer to her than ever. 

“ It will be heavenly,” he said to her, “ only, darling 
mother, let it be just you and I, and no one else ! For 
pity’s sake, don’t let us have Aunt Torrens with us. I 
shall be ill again if she comes; in fact, I declare that I 
won’t go at all, unless you can get rid of her.” 

And Mrs. Eoscoe was finally obliged to break this un- 
palatable declaration to her sister-iu-lavv. 

She wrapped it up as carefully and as politely as she 
could, but, do as she would, there was no disguising the 
fact that Cecil refused to go if his aunt was to go 
too. 

Mrs. Torrens, who had set her heart on the trip abroad, 
was deeply hurt and offended ; and there ensued a quarrel 
between the two ladies, the like of v/hich, for bitterness 
and anger, had never taken place before. 

Mrs. Eoscoe retired to her son’s room, dissolved in 
tears. 

“ She will never forgive us,” she said sobbingly to him. 
“ She is perfectly furious ; she wouldn’t believe it at first, 
and then when she understood that you really wished to 
go with me only, and did not want her at all, her rage 
was simply fearful. She has threatened to leave us alto- 
gether, Cecil.” 

“And a good job, too,” replied Cecil heartlessly. 
“ Why she ever came to live with us at all, I never can 
imagine. I am sure we don’t want her.” 

“ But remember her money, my dearest boy. Her 
money, which I always hoped and believed that she 
would leave to you.” 

“ I can do without it, very well. I neither want 
Aunt Torrens, nor her dirty money either; you can 
tell her so.” 

“ Oh ! it is very foolish of you to say that, Cecil, for 
money is always a blessing, no matter from what source 
it comes. But alas — alas, she has already mentioned 
the names of those wretched little Torrens children, her 
husband’s nephews, you know, whom I hoped she had 
quite forgotten. She said just now that she felt she 
had been unjust to them, and that she should alter her 
will and leave everything to them.” 


304 


A BAD LOT. 


“Well, let her! I am sure I don’t care! So long as 
she doesn’t come with us to Switzerland, she may do any 
other d d thing she pleases,” he cried recklessly. 

And it was after this rent in the family peace and har- 
mony that it occurred to Mrs. Eoscoe that it might be 
possible to take with them abroad another companion, in 
whose society she deemed that it would be altogether 
wise and desirable that her son should be thrown. 

Cecil raised no objections whatever to this idea. 

“ Oh ! by all means take little Ida, if you like, mother 
dear. I daresay it will be pleasanter for you to have 
another lady with you, and Ida is one of those people 
who does not rub one the wrong way ; she does not, it is 
true, excite one particularly, but then, on the other hand, 
she is perfectly inoffensive.” 

This was not, perhaps, very encouraging, but Mrs. 
Eoscoe was thankful for small mercies, and required no 
more than his permission to set her little scheme in 
motion. 

Ida was of course only too delighted to go with her 
friend and her son, and never assuredly did a little party 
of three set off from Charing Cross in better spirits, 
and in better harmony with one another, than did these 
three people, on a certain balmy morning early in July. 

The Alps and their keen health-giving breezes did 
their duty by Cecil Eoscoe. Very soon he had ceased 
to be an invalid; in an incredibly short time he shook 
off his invalid habits, the tonics and the medicines were 
thrown to the winds, and an alpenstock became his daily 
companion in their stead. The love of climbing grew 
upon him with his growing strength, and that passion 
to get up, and see over, which becomes a craving to 
those who imbibe the true spirit of mountain scenery, 
began to possess him with a new and hitherto untasted 
delight. 

What a joy it was to rise before the rest of the sleep- 
ing world was awake, to breakfast hurriedly on dry 
rolls and milk, and to set off in the cold, grey chill of 
the dawning day; and then to climb and climb for long 
hours, by steep and stony paths that wound amongst 
the stillness of the dusky pine forests; to watch the 
rising sun as it flushed one after the other the white 


AMONGST THE ALPS. 


305 


bosoms of the long mountain range into golden glory, 
whilst the pale blue mists in the deep dark valleys be- 
low, rose and dispersed themselves under the warmth 
of the crimson morning. And then, what a rapture in 
the keen flower-scented air, up there, upon those dizzy 
heights of cliff and upland meadow I How delicious to 
lie upon beds of gentian and of wild thyme, to gather 
great bunches of crimson Alpine roses, to listen to the 
faint musical tinkle of the goat bells, and to count the 
little brown chlaets dotted far below amongst the em- 
erald green pastures. And then to turn once more to 
the solemn grandeur of those eternal mountains oppo- 
site, rent with dazzling glaciers from summit to base, 
and wonderful always with the impenetrable mysteries 
of the long, long ages of creation. 

Cecil grew to love those morning rambles amongst the 
Alpine solitudes — solitudes that lay far above the busy 
world below and that were steeped in the ineffable peace 
and sweetness which hover betwixt the mountain tops 
and the sky. 

Haturally enough, it was not Mrs. Eoscoe who was his 
companion upon those wanderings amongst the moun- 
tains and forests and valleys. Yet he was hardly ever 
alone. Almost always Ida was up and dressed in time 
to be his companion. Clad in her neat costume of home- 
spun, with strong boots upon her feet, and a wide straw 
hat upon her head, he would find her awaiting him in 
the hall of the hotel at the aj^pointed hour ; always eager 
and keen to try some new route, and full of sympathy 
with any mood in which he happened to find himself. 
And Ida was at her best again in these days; hope, and 
the constant companionship of the man she loved, ren- 
dered her gentle and amiable, and all those evil ingre- 
dients within her, of hate and envy and malice, retreated 
once more into the background, under the softening influ- 
ences of the happy change in her fate. 

She was not at all a clever or lively companion, but 
perhaps that was all the more in her favour, for it is not 
the clever men who are the most attracfed by clever 
women, in point of fiict, they more usually — perhaps by 
the force of contrast — prefer the fools. 

Ida was not exactly a fool — far from it ; but she was 
26 * 


u 


306 


A BAD LOT. 


by no means intellectual, and the poetical element, which 
should exist in every cultured mind, was entirely left out 
of her. But she was practical and sensible, and she had 
wit enough at all events to be silent upon subjects she 
knew nothing about. It did not, in fact, occuy to Cecil 
to lay bare his thoughts or his opinions to her, for he 
knew by experience that she only echoed everything he 
said with a parrot-like servility, and he did not want the 
trouble of making conversation. Yet he would have 
been hardly human had he remained long in ignorance 
of her absolute devotion to him. It was soon plain 
as daylight that she worshipped him as a superior 
being, and such worship was just at the present junc- 
ture eminently soothing and grateful to him and to his 
wounded vanity. 

The weeks slipped away ; the weather remained per- 
fect. Sometimes his mother joined them in prolonged 
excursions by steamer across the deep blue waters of a 
placid lake that lay many hundred feet below their hotel, 
or sometimes they took a carriage, and all three drove 
downwards amongst the pine woods to a secluded town 
that lay in the valley beyond ; but always, and on every 
occasion, Ida was at Cecil’s side. 

And then one day an accident brought matters to a 
climax — an accident, without which it is possible that 
Cecil might have gone on to the end of the chapter with- 
out understanding the meaning of the situation into 
which he had drifted. 

One afternoon, Ida — whether by chance or on purpose 
is a matter that has never been altogether cleared up — 
slipped and nearly fell, in coming down a very steep 
path. She declared that she was in great pain, and that 
she must have twisted or sprained her ankle. At any 
rate, she was apparently unable to walk alone, and there 
was nothing else for Cecil to do but to assist her as best 
he could down the steep descent. 

They were fortunately at a very short distance from 
the hotel, and it was Mrs. Eoscoe’s custom to come out 
to meet them ‘to a certain point amongst the woods that 
was within the limits of her walking powers, there to 
await their return from their expeditions. They had 
not gone far before they caught sight of her waiting 


AMONGST THE ALPS. 


307 


and looking out for them in the usual place, seated upon 
a bench under a wide-spreading pine tree from which 
there was a lovely view of the lake and mountains. 

Mrs. Roscoe suddenly heard her son’s voice, and look- 
ing up she saw something that made her heart leap up 
within her with joy and satisfaction. The young people 
came into sight round the corner of the path in an en- 
tirely unusual fashion. For Cecil’s arm was round Ida’s 
waist, and she was apparently leaning with affectionate 
familiarity upon his shoulder. 

Such a sight, not unnaturally, suggested but one solu- 
tion to Mrs. Roscoe’s mind. She rose and rushed hastily 
forwards, and before Cecil realized what she was about 
to do, she enfolded them both in a motherly embrace. 

‘‘ My dearest, dearest children !” she cried excitedly. 
“Now, indeed, I am a happy woman! for the wish of 
my heart is realized at last. Kiss me, my darling boy 
— and you too, my dearest Ida, dear daughter of my 
heart and choice.” 

“Mother!” cried Cecil sharply, and he shook Ida off 
from him almost roughly. “Explain to my mother, 
Ida, what has happened,” he said, turning to her. But 
to his confusion and dismay, Ida made no answer; her 
face was crimson with blushes, her eyes were lowered, 
her lips trembled, her injured foot seemed to hurt her no 
longer — or perhaps she had forgotten it, for she stood 
upon it now quite easily ; and then, for all answer, she 
suddenly threw her arms round Mrs. Roscoe’s neck and 
burst into tears. 

Cecil stood for a moment looking on awkwardly 
enough, then the truth began to come home to him — his 
mother had taken them for lovers ! 

“ Ida has sprained her foot,” he murmured confusedly 
and somewhat foolishly. “ I — I was helping her ” 

“ Of course, of course, my dear — and this little acci- 
dent has brought everything right between you! You 
need not explain. I see it all, and I have guessed your 
secret long ago, my dearest Ida ; I know that you have 
loved Cecil for years, almost as dearly as his old mother 
does !” She assisted the girl tenderly to the seat from 
which she had just arisen, and Ida hid her burning 
cheeks on his mother’s breast. 


308 


A BAB LOT. 


Cecil came and stood before them both. 

“ Is that so, Ida ?” he asked gravely. “ Do you indeed 
love me ?” 

And then, partlj^ because of her tears which distressed 
him, and partly because really he saw no way of retir- 
ing gracefully and with dignity from the position into 
which, between them, he had been forced, and also 
partly too because this mute confession of a love he had 
not sought was really very flattering to his bruised 
amour propre, the young man took Ida’s hand in his and 
kissed it. 

“If you love me, I ought to be a very happy man,” 
he said. 

And it was in this strange manner that the engage- 
ment so long and so ardently desired by Mrs, Koscoe 
had come about. 


CHAPTEE XXXIV. 

A NOTICE TO QUIT. 

At Eingwood Manor, a whole long autumn and winter 
slipped uneventfully away. Then came the spring; 
March, with its nipping winds, and April, with its 
flowers and showers, followed in due time by a May of 
the real old-fashioned sort. A balmy May, of blue skies 
and gentle breezes, of lilacs and laburnums and horse- 
chestnuts hastening into blossom, and of long waving 
grass, spangled over with star-like ox-eyed daisies ; a 
May, made melodious by the song of a thousand birds 
in the flower-scented air, and by the deep throbbing 
under-tones of the turtle doves, as they murmured their 
gentle loves amongst the high beech woods upon the 
hills. 

Xell had now been for a year and a month an inmate 
of her uncle’s house ; and in all that time, save for that 
October day on which she had read of Cecil’s marriage 
in the newspaper, no event of any importance at all had 
occurred to break the deep tranquillity of her monot- 
onous existence. 


A NOTICE TO QUIT. 


309 


Sometimes she grew very weary of it ; of the peace- 
fulness and of the order, and of the deadly dulness of 
it all. She was safe indeed, sheltered from all evil, and 
secure from every peril both of soul and body; but it is 
possible to pay too dearly for the doubtful blessing of 
mere safety. Nell’s thoughts often turned with aching 
longing towards the past, which it had seemed to her to 
be so wise to leave behind for ever. Oh ! for a little life 
and movement, for some of the old noise and racket, for 
the loud voices ringing through the house, for the foolish 
jokes and the boisterous merriment of her childhood. 
Oh ! for something to quicken the pulses and to stir the 
blood. It is all very well to be respectable, and respect- 
ability is no doubt an estimable quality, thought Nell to 
herself with a grim sense of rebellion at her fate, but 
one can have too much of a good thing sometimes ! and 
do respectable people never indulge in any outbursts of 
excitement to break the dead level of their lives? 
Would nothing ever happen to her again on this side of 
the grave? VV^ould the cleaning of the aviary, and the 
cutting out of unbleached shirts, and the carrying of 
mutton broth to the poor people, fill up the whole sum 
of her existence from now until her dying day? 

Sometimes the long silence was broken by letters 
from her sisters. Dottie wrote rapturously about her 
new wee baby and her delightful experiences of Indian 
society. “ Everybody visits me out here,” she wrote, 
“ and we have more invitations and more gaiety than 
we know how to get through ; and Poppet is still de- 
voted to me, and has never had a single flirtation with 
anybody else since the day I married him.” Millie, too, 
wrote of stirring events and times; she was making her 
business pay, the “ Golconda Ointment” was a great suc- 
cess ; she had hired a screw for the hunting season and 
had had some capital runs ; or she had been to the 
Easter ball at the Town Hall, where she had danced all 
night with her “ pals,” although the “ county” had cut 
her dead ; and the theatre was built up again at last, 
and old so and so was dead, or young so and so was mar- 
ried. There was always something going on at Fen- 
chester, but at Ringwood there was never anything 
at all. 


310 


A BAD LOT. 


Would nothing ever happen to her again? Nell won- 
dered. 

And then at last something did happen, but it was not 
in the very least like anything which in her dreams and 
her imaginings she had desired or longed for. 

One morning, in the last week of May, when summer 
was in its fullest glory, when the woods had decked 
themselves in their summer greenery and the garden 
beds were blazing with the newly-bedded-out geraniums 
and calceolarias, Lady Forrester came after breakfast 
into the quiet back room where Nell performed so many 
of her dull little daily tasks, where she fed the birds 
and cut out the clothes for the poor, and where the 
lending library to the village, of which she had the 
supervision, was ranged in rows of sad-coloured brown 
paper covers in the book- cases around the walls. 

“ Eleanor,' my dear, I wish to have a little talk to you 
this morning.” 

“ Yes, aunt ?” 

Lady Forrester closed the door behind her, and sat 
down on one of the straight cane-backed chairs. Nell 
wondered vaguely what was coming, without, however, 
very much interest or excitement. 

“You know, of course,” began Lady Forrester, “that 
Evangeline is now turned seventeen. It is time, as I think 
you will admit, that she should enter into a little society.” 

“ 1 suppose so.” 

“ With that object, your uncle and I have arranged to 
go up to London for the season. We have taken a house, 
in short, in Eaton Place.” 

“ You are going away ?” asked Nell quickly — here was 
a change indeed ! 

“ Yes, next week, until the end of July.” 

“And I?” 

“ That is precisely what I am coming to. We cannot 
very well take you with us, Eleanor. 1 must, I am sorry 
to say, leave you here. I want to take mademoiselle and 
the two younger girls with us, so as to give them the 
benefit of some lessons from London masters in music 
and drawing, and the house in Eaton Place will not hold 
a larger party. I regret very much, Eleanor, that I am 
not able to take you with us.” 


A NOTICE TO QUIT, 


311 


“ It doesn’t matter,” answered the girl dully. “Whether 
you are here or away, will not make any ditferencc to me, 
Aunt Catherine,” she added with unconscious irony. 

“ I shall leave a housemaid, the second kitchen-maid 
and the under-footman ; they will take care of the house 
and look after you.” 

Nell made no answer, she went on silently with her 
work, laying a sleeve gusset crossways on to the stuff 
on the table and cutting out its fellow with huge clumsy 
scissors, which squeaked and grated through the calico 
as though they relished their task no better than she did. 
The information given by her aunt seemed to her to re- 
quire no comment. Lady Forrester sat on. She had 
something else to say — something that was not at all 
easy or agreeable to say. 

“ I wish you would put the scissors down for a minute, 
Eleanor, and listen to me,” she said at last quite crossly. 

Nell looked up surprised ; but she laid her work aside 
at once and stood leaning against the corner of the table, 
waiting for what was to come. 

“ You see,” began Lady Forrester, with a considerable 
amount of awkwardness, “ now that Evangeline will bo 
grown up, I shall be obliged to take her out with rne. I 
could not of course take out two young ladies. You 
must not think me unkind, Eleanor, but of course you 
are not like my own daughter, one has to think of one’s 
own flesh and blood first.” 

“My dear aunt,” said Nell with a rising colour, “I 
never expected you to take me to London. I don’t wish 
to go in fact ; I had much rather be left here alone, or 
perhaps I can go and stay with Millie.” 

“ Oh, it is not London only, it is afterwards. My 
dear Eleanor, 1 think it is much better to speak quite 
plainly.” 

“ Indeed I think so too. Aunt Catherine.” 

“ You see we have now given you a home here for over 
a year, and I am sure you must admit that we have 
treated you well — exactly like one of ourselves in fact.” 

“You and my uncle have been invariably kind to 
me.” 

“ But of course, my dear, things cannot go on like this 
for ever. With a grown-up daughter at home there 


312 


A BAD LOT. 


must necessarily be many changes now in our quiet home 
life. We shall have to entertain, to give garden parties, 
dinners, and even a ball perhaps later on — do you follow 
me?” 

“ Certainly, aunt, but ” 

“Wait a moment, my dear Eleanor. In such a life as 
this, you by your peculiar position here cannot possibly 
be included. I could not well shut you out of these pro- 
spective gaieties on Evangeline’s account, and yet I could 
not either allow you to join in them.” 

“ Why not?” cried Nell, looking up at her suddenly. 
“AVhat is there about me to render me unfit to join 
in Evangeline’s pleasures ? Are we not first cousins ? 
children of two brothers? equally born and descended? 
I too,” she went on a little breathlessly, “ am young, and 
fond of amusement. Is there any reason why 1 may 
not go where she goes ?” 

Lady Forrester’s eyes opened wider and wider with 
astonishment during the delivery of this fiery little 
speech ; that the meek Eleanor, her drudge, her paid 
dependant, should launch out in this manner, was quite 
an unexpected revelation. Nell’s eyes were alight, her 
colour came and went, her golden head was thrown back 
defiantly j in all her life she had never looked more beau- 
tiful — nor to her aunt’s perturbed eyes — more alarming ! 

“Eeally, Eleanor!” cried the elder woman, “this ex- 
hibition of temper is most unseemly and most unlady- 
like. I am positively astonished I You ought to know 
better than to fly out like this. You talk of being of 
equal in birth to my daughter, but surely you forget 
that if your fathers were brothers, your mothers, unfor- 
tunately for you, come of a widely different class. I do 
not wish to taunt you with this misfortune, it would be 
most unchristian to do so, but you cannot be blind to the 
fact of the gulf which divides you from my children. 
Besides, there are other things ; the unfortunate name 
you all had at Marshlands, and the uncomfortable ending 
to your own engagement, which no one seems quite to 
have understood, and for which of course people will 
always believe you to have been in the fault.” For Lady 
Forrester in these latter days had found out beyond a 
shadow of doubt that it was Nell herself, and not one 


A NOTICE TO QUIT 


313 


of her sisters, who had either jilted, or been jilted by 
Cecil Eoscoe. “Then look at your sister Millicent,” 
she continued, “you spoke of going to stay with her 
just now — I hope, my dear Eleanor, for your own sake, 
that you will do nothing of the kind. Your uncle and 
I consider that Millicent has disgraced the family — turn- 
ing herself into a female veterinary surgeon, and selling 
nasty ointments in a shop. Everybody, I hear, has been 
talking about it in Fenshire, and everybody is scandal- 
ized and disgusted by such extraordinary conduct. I 
do really hope, Eleanor, that you will dissociate yourself 
from your sister, and I trust that you will not misunder- 
stand me or think me unkind when I tell you, that after 
we come home at the end of July I can no longer con- 
veniently offer to keep you here. But, pray believe me, 
my dear, your uncle and I shall always take a deep and 
kindly interest in your welfare ; indeed, we have already 
taken steps in order to help you to carve out a respecta- 
ble and honourable career for yourself” 

Nell had kept silence during the whole of this long 
speech. After a very few moments, the little flash of 
spirit that had aroused her into something of her old 
combativeness, had flickered down and died sadly 
away. By the time that Lady Forrester came to the 
end of her harangue, Nell’s eyes were full of tears. 

“Does the world then never forget or forgive?” she 
murmured brokenly, for even the allusion to her mother 
had ceased to anger her ; she believed her to be dead, and 
the dead cannot be harmed by cruel words. 

“ What career can you suppose to be open to me then, 
Aunt Catherine, if I am unfit, as you say, to join in 
Evangeline’s life ?” 

“ 1 did not say that, Eleanor ; do not be unreasonable 
or unjust !” and Lady Forrester took the girl’s limp hand 
not unkindly in hers. “ I never said that you were 
unfit — I only said it would not suit me to have you here, 
and perhaps I have other reasons, too, that will hurt you 
less to hear. I will be very frank with you, my dear. 
You are very handsome, you know, Eleanor — whilst my 

poor Evangeline ! Oh, you see I am quite open and 

honest with you, my dear, am I not?” and Lady Forres- 
ter coloured as she made her little confession, 

27 


o 


314 


A BAD LOT. 


Kell liked her aunt perhaps better at that moment 
than she had ever done before, for she began to under- 
stand that it was this, and this chiefly, that was the 
motive-power of all else that she had spoken. 

Her hand closed with a little warmth upon hers. 

“Tell me, then, what it is that you and my uncle wish 
me to do,” she said humbly ; “ I am not ungrateful to 
you, aunt. I can never forget that you have at any rate 
given me a home for more than a year. You spoke of a 
‘ career.’ Tell me what career can possibly be open to a 
girl whose talents are so limited and whose bringing 
up has been so unsatisfactory as mine ? Once, indeed, 
when I was very young, I thought of going upon the 
stage ” 

“ God forbid !’ cried her aunt in genuine consterna- 
tion ; it was bad enough to have one niece who was a 
veterinary doctoress, but to have a second niece an actress 
would be too great an accumulation of misfortune to be 
endured. “ No, no, my dear ; we can do better for you 
than that, I hope. I have in my mind a dear old lady, 
a Mrs. Eaymond, who lives in Northumberland. Her 
daughters are all married now, and she is looking out for 
a companion, a cheerful young person who will read 
aloud to her and go out driving with her. I have already 
written about you to her daughter, Mrs. Melby, a great 
friend of mine. I shall meet her in town next week and 
talk it over with her ; if you like the idea I am almost 
sure I can get the situation for you. Your duties will 
be very light and simple, and it will be a pleasant 
and comfortable home for you. As it happens, she does 
not require her companion until the first of August, 
which will fit in with our plans very nicely, for I was 
just going to tell you that your uncle has an idea of of- 
fering the use of this house to his mother during our 
absence, and if she comes down it will be a kindness on 
your part if you will stay on whilst she is here. I do 
not get on with your grandmother, as I daresay you 
know, Eleanor, and I do not like her to be with my girls. 
I don’t at all approve of her worldly style of conversa- 
tion, and I should not like my daughters to be thrown 
into her society. But with you it is different, you are 
older, and you know her well already — you can make 


A NOTICE TO QUIT. 


315 


allowances for her age, and for her very peculiar and 
unfortunate opinions and views. And you will really be 
doing us a great service if you will remain at Eingwood, 
in order to make things comfortable for her during her 
stay, for I feel that it is a duty to show her some atten- 
tion. Once before, we lent her the house whilst we were 
away, and she liked being here very much, only that she 
complained of loneliness, but she will not be at all lonely 
if you are here with her.” 

And then Lady Forrester, having delivered herself 
of all her information, delivered a peck, by the way of a 
kiss, upon Nell’s unresponsive cheek, and went her way 
out of the little back room with the comfortable convic- 
tion that she had arranged everything very cleverly and 
pleasantly, and had smoothed down all the little diflacul- 
ties between herself and her husband’s niece in the most 
satisfactory manner possible. 

“Well, what did she say?” asked Sir Eobert, looking 
up eagerly as she entered his library. 

“ Oh, it’s all right. She seemed a little annoyed at 
first, but now she quite sees the force of my arguments, 
and is ready to fall in with our views.” 

“ I don’t like it,” growled Sir Eobert sulkily ; “ I don’t 
like it a bit, I tell you. Why should the girl be sent 
away ? As pretty and as good a girl as I ever came 
across. I can’t for the life of me see why we should turn 
her out to earn her own living amongst strangers — my 
poor brother’s child. Why can’t she stop on with us, 
and go out to the balls and kick-ups with Evangeline ? 
The close carriage holds four as easily as three, and it’s 
as little trouble taking out two girls as one.” 

“ Don’t be a fool. Bob,” replied his better-half irrita- 
bly. “ You seem to me to be bereft of your senses 
sometimes. A nice thing it would be for our own child 
to have a handsome cousin like Eleanor always at her 
elbow, to cut her out and take the wind out of her sails ! 
We must marry Evangeline well and quickly, so as to 
get her off our hands before it is time for Florence to 
come out. How are we likely to do that, I should like 
to know, with a girl like Eleanor always there ? Why, 
the marriageable men would all be running after her, in- 
stead of talking to Evangeline.” 


316 


A BAD LOT. 


“ Well, and why not ? Eleanor is the eldest, let her 
have her chances first.” 

But Lady Forrester only shrugged her shoulders con- 
temptuously. 

“ You must allow me to be the best judge of these 
matters, my dear Bob. Besides, it is too late now; I 
have arranged everything — Eleanor has agreed to stay 
here to look after your mother till the end of July, and 
then she will go up to Mrs. Baymond’s in Northumber- 
land. She will have a most happy and excellent home 
with her. I have settled it all with Mrs. Melby already, 
and Eleanor is quite pleased with the idea.” 

Whether Eleanor was pleased with the idea or no, she 
had not at any rate been left much choice in the matter. 
To become the paid companion of an elderly widow-lady, 
who lives all the year round in a secluded Northum- 
brian valley, does not present itself as the acme of bliss 
to a beautiful j'oung woman of twenty-two, whose ca- 
pacities for life and enjoyment are still keen and undi- 
minished. 

But Nell said to herself somewhat sadly, that “beg- 
gars must not be choosers,” and that if her uncle and 
aunt turned her out of their house, because she was so 
good-looking as to be considered a dangerous rival to 
their own daughter, there was perhaps nothing that she 
could do better than to agree to their arrangements for 
her future — arrangements that were seemingly all cut 
and dried long before she had even been told about them. 

Nell smiled a little grimly to herself over it all. Long 
ago she had been made to understand that to be beau- 
tiful was to be dangerous, and here indeed was a very 
practical illustration of the truth of the axiom. As 
long as she was kept in the back-ground and nobody 
had seen her, it had not mattered, and no mention had 
been made by her aunt of her personal disadvantages 
— but the naivete with which Lady Forrester had con- 
fessed to the real reason of her desire to be rid of her, 
filled Nell’s mind with a good deal of amusement. 

“Every one for himself in this world!” she said to 
herself without much bitterness. “Aunt Catherine is 
no worse than her neighbours — love, friendship, charity 
and justice, all alike are swept into a limbo of chaos 


A NOTICE TO qUIT. 


317 


from the moment that self-interest steps in and claims 
the first place. As long as I could be of use to them, 
they wanted me ; even up to the last they mean to turn 
me to account, it seems, for I am to be kept hanging on 
through the summer, because it happens to suit them 
that I should stay and look after Granny. Not that I 
object to that, however!” 

For as to this latter item in the programme for her 
future, Nell was not otherwise than well pleased with it. 
She had not seen her grandmother now for more than a 
year — since the day indeed that she had lunched in 
Wimpole Street on her way down to Eingwood — and 
she was unfeignedly glad at the thought of being with 
her again. With ail her sins, her cynicism, her lack of 
principle, her easy way of perverting the truth or of 
twisting a falsehood into the semblamce of the truth, 
there was always the fascination of a crisp and tonic 
atmosphere about the old lady. With all her bad points 
she was picturesquely attractive. Nell had not indeed 
wanted to live with her altogether, but she did want to 
see her occasionally. And besides, she knew very well 
that the old lady loved her — and in all the world there 
is no personal attraction so strong as that consciousness 
of being loved. One can forgive almost anything in a 
person who loves one for one’s self, and for no other 
reason on earth. Nell had disappointed her grand- 
mother bitterly ; she had also, on more than one occa- 
sion, spoken her mind to her severely and uncompro- 
misingly, and she had accused her openly and boldly of 
untruth and of deceit, and yet she well knew that for 
all that she had in no way diminished her affection for 
her, indeed her straightforward honesty had probably 
increased it. 

It was, therefore, with a sense of real pleasure that 
she welcomed the old lady on her arrival at Eingwood. 

The others had taken their departure two days pre- 
viously ; the maids had swept down the house and had 
cleared the rooms of the litter of the packing, and Nell 
had seen the last of the family, almost with relief, and 
when her grandmother arrived upon the vacated stage, 
it was as if a bit of her old, free, careless life had come 
back to visit her again. 


27 * 


318 


A BAD LOT. 


The very first words that Lady Forrester addressed to 
her, when she was seated in a comfortable armchair, 
struck a new chord in the long stagnation of her life. 

“ So my daughter-in-law is going to turn you out of 
house and home, I understand, Nell! Well, she was 
always a sour-faced cat, and I never could abide her. 
Bob was never my favourite son, as you know — I was 
always fondest of your poor father — but Bob was a 
good fellow enough, until he married that woman — he 
really was, Nell!” 

“ But I am very fond of Uncle Bob, Granny ; he has 
been very kind to me,” said the girl, smiling, as she 
arranged the cushions behind the old lady’s back, think- 
ing to herself as she did so how nice it was to hear her- 
self called “ Nell” once more. 

“ She brought her family to see me yesterday, in 
Wimpole Street,” continued Lady Forrester. “Miss 
Evangeline — great heavens, what an ‘ Evangeline’ ! — 
they had better have left her in the ‘ Forest Primeval,’ 
she would have been quite at home amongst the mon- 
keys !” she chuckled. 

“ She is a very good girl. Granny.” 

“ Good /” repeated the old woman contemptuously. 
“ What is the use of a girl being good, with a face like 
a potato and a figure like a flour-sack? No wonder 
Catherine wants to get my beautiful Nell out of the 
way before she introduces a creature like that into 
society. Oh ! I know your Aunt Catherine of old, my 
dear ! She makes a lot of talk, with her charities and 
her high sense of duty, and so forth, but the moment 
that duty and charity stand in the light of her own 
selfish wishes, they are very soon scattered to the winds. 
She is a flint-hearted vixen, is your Aunt Catherine !” 

“ No, really. Granny, you do her an injustice,” remon- 
strated Nell, although she could not help laughing at the 
old lady’s vigorous language ; “ Aunt Catherine is not 
nearly so bad as you make out ; she is a mother, of 
course, and thinks of her own children first — it is not 
unnatural — but she really acts up to her principles — 
such as they are — in her own way. Aunt Catherine is 
a thoroughly good woman.” 

“ Oh, good, good ' there you go again, Nell,” cried the 


UP IN THE BEECH WOODS. 


319 


old woman mockingly, “ with your parrot-like talk 
about ‘goodness.’ Of course she is good, what else is 
left to ugly women but to be good, 1 should like to 
know ? it is their only career. Do you suppose any- 
body ever tempted your Aunt Catherine to be anything 
else but good, my dear? or will anybody ever tempt 
that suet dumpling of a daughter they have been so 
stupid as to christen after an epic poem? A pretty 
‘ Evangeline’ indeed !” And the old lady gave a vicious 
little snort of derision, quite in her old style, at the 
romantic name that olfended her so much. 

“ Women to whom no temptation comes are, very for- 
tunate, Granny,” remarked Nell gravely. 

“ And very uninteresting !” snapped Lady Forrester. 


CHAPTEK XXXV. 

UP IN THE BEECH WOODS. 

“ What have they been doing to you do wnEere, Nell ?” 
asked Lady Forrester one afternoon a few days later, 
when Nell had installed her armchair in a sheltered 
corner of the lawn, with a warm wrap tucked around 
her, so that she might enjoy the sunshine and the gentle 
breezes of the sweet summer day. “ I have been watch- 
ing you carefully, my dear, ever since I came, and I have 
come to the conclusion that you look pale and thin and 
worn. Has she been worrying and badgering you, that 
she-devil of a daughter-in-law of mine ? she is capable 
of anything ! Come, tell me the truth, you can surely 
speak plainly to me.” 

Nell smiled a little. “I am afraid I can’t oblige you, 
Granny, by making myself out to be the victim of ill- 
treatment. Aunt Catherine has been uniformly kind to 
me, I assure you, in spite of her feline and fiendish pro- 
clivities.” 

“ There must be something to account for your losing 
your looks in ‘this way,” persisted the old lady, with a 
troubled glance at the girl’s j^ale and somewhat sad face. 


320 


A BAD LOT. 


“You never looked peaky and thin like this before, and 
all the spirit gone out of your eyes and your voice. 
Why, you aren’t half the girl you were. Nell!” as a 
sudden thought struck her, “ you are not such a fool as 
to be fretting still after that miserable creature Cecil 
Eoscoe, are you ?” 

“ Oh, no — no !” and Nell laughed outright. 

“ You are sure you are not breaking your heart because 
he is married ?” 

“ Not in the very least,” she replied with amused de- 
cision. 

“ Then,’’ persisted Lady Forrester wickedly, “ is it 
poor Vane Darley, whose death has preyed upon your 
mind, my dear, and impaired your good looks so sadly ?” 

“ Granny I you should not ask me such a question,” 
cried Nell warmly. 

“Oh, it’s all very well to put on that indignant air, 
my dear, but you know, as well as I do, that you cared 
for the poor old sinner fifty times more than you ever 
did for that minced-up prig Eoscoe ! and I am sure you 
were quite right, for poor Yane, with all his sins, was, at 
any rate, a man, whereas the other was no better than a 
wooden effigy out of a Noah’s Ark I” 

Nell bent down and kissed the old lady lightly upon 
the forehead. “ I am all right. Granny dear — don’t 
trouble about me or my looks I I do not think about 
either of those men at all, now-a-days; one forgets 
everything, I suppose, in time, and I neither grieve nor 
fret nor break my heart over the past in the least now 
— it is all over — dead and cold ! Sometimes I wonder if 
there is any power of feeling left in me. The capacity 
for emotion dies at last, I suppose ; passion wears itself 
out, and even love’s flame flickers down for lack of fuel I 
and is snuffed out, and I am one of those people who 
could never go on loving any one hopelessly. One can 
defy fate when one gets to that stage, you know. Granny ! 
I don’t think any man could have the power to make me 
suffer now — it is something to thank God for, any way.” 

And it was certainly not either of dead Yane Darley, 
or of Cecil Eoscoe, who was married and had presuma- 
bly forgotten her, that Nell was thinking at that moment, 
as her eyes strayed dreamily across the smooth-shaven 


UP IN TEE BEECH WOODS. 


321 


sun-lit lawn to where — far away beyond the lime tree 
avenue — the haymakers were tossing the fragrant new- 
cut grass into the warm sweet air. 

Old Lady Forrester watched her keenly ; instinctively 
she had guessed that there was some other closed chapter 
of the girl’s life of which she herself knew nothing. 
“There has been some one else,” she said to herself; “I 
guessed as much. Yane Darley was a mere episode, 
Cecil Eoscoe never came within reach of her heart, and 
yet Nell has loved — and has loved unhappily — when, and 
where, and whom — I wonder?” 

But aloud, she only said to her, after a little pause : 

“Nell, I wish I could see you married before I die; it 
would be a great happiness to me, my dear.” 

Nell turned to her with one of her old bright sunny 
smiles, a smile that lit up eyes and lips, and seemed to 
give back life and colour to her whole face. 

“ I am a horrible failure. Granny dear, am I not ? and 
I am afraid I shall be so always— for I shall never 
marry.” 

“ Why not, my dear — why not ?” 

“Because,” said Nell slowly, after a brief pause, whilst 
the colour stole swiftly in a bright wave from her brow 
to her chin, “ because the only man I would ever marry 
now, does not want me in the very least. But don’t let 
us talk about it any more,” she resumed in a lighter 
voice, “ one can live well enough alone, and men were 
only created, I think, to make the women who love them 
miserable. I am doomed to be an old maid, Granny, and 
after all, there are many worse lives amongst the women 
who are married, I expect !” 

“ Married or single, Nell, T shall leave you every penny 
of my money,” said the old woman, drawing her down 
towards her affectionately. 

“ I don’t want your money. Granny ; keep it yourself, 
and live long and enjoy it,” answered Nell quickly. 

“ Oh, I am not the least anxious to die, I assure you,” 
replied Lady Forrester with her little chuckling laugh. 
“ I’d live for ever if I knew how, for 1 don’t feel at all 
sure as to what they’ll do with me bye-and-byc, and one 
knows the worst of this world any way! As to my 
money, you don’t suppose 1 would be such a fool as to 

V 


322 


A BAD LOT. 


leave it behind me, if I could take it away with me, d® 
you ? 1 am a great deal too fond of my money, my dear. 
But then, there’s no provision for luggage made when 
one has to take that express train. With all the march 
of intellect and of civilization they talk so much about, 
no one, as far as I know, has ever discovered a way of 
doing that yeti So, as I’ve got to leave it behind, I’d 
sooner you had it than any one else. Dottie has been 
lucky enough to get a husband at the eleventh hour ; I 
consider her provided for, and Millicent, as you tell me, 
is growing rich over her nast}^ grease spots. Well, I 
swear that no child of that woman with a kitchen fender 
for a nose shall ever touch a shilling of it, even though 
my own son is her husband. So it will all have to come 
to you, you see, Nell, there is no help for it !” 

Nell only smiled, and stroked the wrinkled old hand, 
and then she stooped to pick a sprig of heliotrope from 
a flower-bed close by. 

“ That is so like you, Nell ; not even to say ‘ thank 
you’ !” said her grandmother, watching her amusedly as 
she fastened the flower in her belt. “Any other girl 
would have overwhelmed me with gratitude, and I should 
have lost my temper and used bad words, but you are 
like no one else, Nell; that is wh}^, I supj)ose, I have 
always liked you the best. Do you know, sometimes, I 
think your mother, poor soul, must have had some won- 
derful touches about her. Of course, we all know she 
was not a lady by birth, and that she did things that 
outraged what the world calls morality, yet it must be 
from her that you get that queer strain of something 
that is so fine and individual. I am certain you don’t 
get it from any Forrester that ever was born — and I am 
a Forrester myself by birth ; I was your grandfather’s 
first cousin, as you know, and that is why, I suppose, all 
the worst of both branches of the family culminate in me. 
Well, as I was going to say, we none of us ever heard 
what became ot* your poor mother; I suppose she must 
be dead long ago, but I think that woman must once 
have been capable of better things than her fate brought 
her to, and perhaps the good in her came out before she 
died.” 

“ Granny,” cried Nell brokenly, turning to her with a 


UP IN THE BEECH WOODS. 


323 


sudden rush of tears into her eyes, “ I thank you, and 
1 bless you for those kind words, from the bottom of 
my heart.” 

“ And yet she doesn’t thank me in the very least for 
putting down her name as residuary legatee in my 
will,” replied Lady Forrester mockingly, as she drew 
the girl fondly to her and kissed her. “Ah, Nell, you 
are truly a wonderful child for worming yourself into 
one’s heart.” 

It was some few days after this conversation that Nell 
began to find out that her grandmother was very much 
aged and broken. She had not noticed it at first, because 
the excitement of her journey and her meeting with 
herself had given her a little spurt, which had served to 
keep up a certain amount of life and animation in her, 
and for about a week she had seemed to be as bright 
and as full of “ go” as ever. But presently she began 
perceptibly to flag. A slight cold, which she caught one 
day from sitting out too late in the garden, pulled her 
down to an unreasonable degree. Nell began also to 
perceive that the old woman had altered her habits and 
customs in many little ways. She never came down- 
stairs till after lunch now, and she retired to bed almost 
directly after dinner. Although the pony carriage had 
been left for her use, she did not care to take drives ; 
driving shook her, she said; she liked a wheel-chair up 
and down the avenue, or, even better, to sit still upon 
the lawn. She still played her games of patience on 
dull and chilly days, but she as often as not dropped 
asleep over them. And above all, the old racy defiant 
talk that used to be always full of piquancy and of fun, 
now often dropped into a mere irritable snarl against 
men and manners, or a pitiful whine over the disap- 
pointments and failures of her own life. 

Less and less, as the days went on, was Lady For- 
rester the bright and lively companion which Nell had 
looked forward to find in her, and more and more was 
the girl thrown back upon her own resources and upon 
a solitary life in the large deserted house. 

One day in June, when Lady Forrester had been about 
three weeks at Eingwood, Nell made a discovery which, 
in spite of her boasts of indifference and of forgetful- 


324 


A BAD LOT. 


ness, set her heart beating quickly and brought the 
colour in a flame to her cheeks. 

She was hunting about in her uncle’s library for some- 
thing to read. The books from Mudie had all migrated 
with the family to town ; and the literature on Sir Eob- 
ert’s bookshelves was not of a lively description, con- 
sisting chiefly of works upon farming and grazing, 
agricultural reports, together with many thick and pon- 
derous volumes of old-fashioned standard works — Gib- 
bon’s “ Eise and Fall of the Eoman Empire,” Smollett’s 
novels, Hallam’s “ Constitution of England,” “ Sir 
Charles Grandison” in twelve volumes, and other works 
of a similar antiquated date, which had been acquired 
by Sir Eobert’s predecessors, and on which the soft dust 
of ages had accumulated through the many long years 
that their pages had lain closed and unoi^ened. There 
was not very much to tempt Nell amongst all this. She 
had read all the books in the village lending library, 
over and over again, all the fairy stories too in the 
schoolroom, as 'well, and even Miss Yonge’s girlish 
heroines had become wearisomely familiar to her. She 
felt inclined for a long ramble up the hills, this lovely 
morning; for Granny had a headache, and was not likely 
to leave her room till late. But oh ! for a book of some 
sort to keep her company up amongst the solitudes 
of the beech woods. 

All at once she espied a little heap of magazines lying 
upon a small table in a distant window. Here was a 
treasure trove indeed! She looked eagerly through 
them ; they were mostly old numbers of the Nineteenth 
Century^ the Fortnightly Contemporary^ and others of the 
same class, and as she turned them over to find some- 
thing she had not read before, that looked likely to in- 
terest her, her eye suddenly was arrested by the name 
of an article on the outer cover of an Aj^ril number of 
one of them: 

“Japanese Philosophy and Japanese Worship” — by 
“Jute.” 

She remained breathless, staring at the words. Full 
well did Nell recollect the secret of that nom de plume 
of “Jute,” which had been once confided to her. 

The article was Julian Temple’s beyond a doubt. But 


VP IN THE BEECH WOODS. 


325 


Japan? Why was he writing about Japan? She 
turned over the pages hurriedly ; the article was 
couched in terms of personal experience, as though the 
writer were actually in the country he was writing 
about, or had been there very lately. And the date of 
its publication was April ; only two months ago ! 

All sorts of contradictory surmises and speculations 
floated through her mind. She must at any rate read it 
— and that at once — but not here, in the cramped con- 
finement of four walls. She must be out in the deep 
solitudes of the woods, with the wide blue sky above 
her, to read the words which this man — still so dear to 
her — had penned, apparently somewhere on the other 
side of the world. 

To read the published writings of a friend, whom one 
knovvs intimately, is one of the most interesting things 
in the world. It is like looking deep into the inner 
heart and mind of one we have known under possibly a 
totally different aspect. For with all conscientious 
writers, such as Julian Temple, the true self comes out 
unconsciously and instinctively, through the medium of 
the pen. He who writes for the broad verdict of the 
outer world, stays not to think of the narrowed opinions 
of friends and acquaintances, nor to consider well-worn 
family prejudices which might cramp and harry his 
freedom. Alone in the solitude of his study, he sits face 
to face with the best which is in him to give, and if he 
be honestly in earnest, it is of that best that he will pour 
out upon the blank sheets of paper before him. 

It is indeed almost an impossibility to some minds to 
write that which they do not believe, or to keep back 
from the paper that which they feel strongly. In con- 
versation it is easy enough to dress the face, to restrain 
the tongue, to utter empty platitudes, or, if necessary, to 
keep silence altogether. For have we not been told that 
the gift of speech has been given to mortal man ex- 
pressly to conceal his real thoughts ? 

But to write falsely or misleadingly is quite another 
matter. 

Nell sat upon a grassy upland slope and devoured that 
article written by Julian Temple from end to end, with 
an eager sense of delight and rapture. When she had 

28 


S26 


A BAD LOT, 


read it through once she turned to the beginning and 
read it again. Much of it was beyond her comprehen- 
sion, some parts of it were abstruse and difficult to fol- 
low, some of it again was scientific and statistical, yet 
again and again there were touches of human interest 
or of poetical imagery which thrilled her through and 
through with a sense of the living personality of the 
man she knew — it was as though he himself were talk- 
ing to her. 

When she had studied it thus, long and carefully, she 
arose from her seat upon the mossy bole of a giant beech, 
and with her finger still set betwixt the leaves of the 
magazine, climbed slowly upwards to the summit of the 
wooded hill. 

This article about Japan furnished her with much food 
for thought. She began to perceive that there might be 
other reasons than those she had always supposed, to 
have kept him so persistently silent. 

If he had been away, as this writing of his seemed to 
imply, on a prolonged tour in distant lands, did it not 
supply a cause for that utter oblivion of herself with 
which she had hitherto credited him, and might not that 
oblivion be merely due to his absence ? 

Full of these thoughts, Nell reached the summit of the 
wooded ridge which overlooked Kingwood Manor. Along 
the top of the hills there ran a narrow moss-grown path, 
which was a favourite walk of hers. The views from 
here were charming. On one side lay her uncle’s prop- 
erty, the village, and the church, and the trout stream 
that wound in shining silver snake-like folds through 
the well- timbered park and became lost to sight amongst 
the green meadows in the wide valley beyond Deep 
down on the further side there lay another gentleman’s 
house — a low white mansion to which she had once 
driven with her aunt to leave some cards. It belonged 
to a General Callendar, an old bachelor, who suffered 
from gout and bad temper, and the place was accounted 
a wasted one to the neighbourhood, in that its master 
neither entertained himself nor came to the entertain- 
ments of his neighbours. 

Nell walked slowly along. The path, which led down 
to Eingwood behind her, led on into the domain of Gene- 


UP IN THE BEECH WOODS. 


327 


ral Callendar beyond. It was, in fact, the boundary line 
between the two properties, and the owners of both had 
a right of way along it. The sunshine up hera was 
full and strong, the trees were smaller and lay farther 
apart, and the June breezes blew fresh and sweet from 
Heaven. 

All at once I^ell saw, just in front of her, the figure of 
a man lying stretched upon his back, half across the path. 
He was dressed in a light-brown tweed suit, and wore a 
soft cap of the same material crushed down over his 
eyes. She saw immediately that it was no keeper or 
woodsman, but a gentleman. 

He was apparently asleep, for he did not move a 
muscle, although she was near enough for him to have 
heard her footsteps had he been awake. 

She was just upon the point of turning and stealing 
softly away — not liking to advance nearer at the risk of 
awakening a stranger — when suddenly she was struck 
by a consciousness of familiarity in the outlines of the 
recumbent figure. The face was turned awaj" from her, 
but something in the crisp grey of the close cut hair, in 
the broad shoulders, in the sunburnt hand flung care- 
lessly back upon the carpet of moss on which he lay, sent 
a wild suggestion through her mind. 

Her heart began to beat with excitement. Surely this 
man was no stranger. She crept noiselessly forward until 
she was within a stone’ s-throw of the sleeping man, until 
she saw him plainly. 

It was Julian Temple. 

The sunlight glinting through the leafy trees threw 
dappled shadows across his tanned face and over his 
big, strong figure. To her fancy, he seemed a little 
older and greyer than when she had seen him last ; he 
looked as though he had lived a hard life, as though the 
strain of travel had told upon him. Otherwise he was 
not changed. She stood there watching him for some 
minutes — five or ten perhaps — she could not afterwards 
remember how long. A strong fascination held her 
there immovable and speechless, then suddenly, before 
she could draw back, his eyes unclosed with a start and 
fixed themselves upon her. 

For half a minute or so he made no other movement, 


328 


A BAD LOT. 


dreamland perhaps still held him prisoner. I^ell trem- 
bled a little, her colour came and went ; then at length 
she smiled, and with the smile the strange moment of 
suspense ended, and he sprang to his feet. 

“This is a miracle indeed!” he cried with the blood 
showing red through the dark tan of his cheek. “ I be- 
lieve I was dreaming of you,” he added with a little 
laugh, and the next moment her hands were clasped in 
his and his keen and deep-set eyes were scanning her face 
eagerly, almost hungrily. 

“Is it indeed you — yourself?” he said, with a ring of 
irrepressible joy in his voice, for there are no laws of 
God or of man which can quench that rush of gladness 
to the heart of him who meets once more, after the long 
pain of parting, the woman whom he loves best in all 
the world. “ How good it is to see you again I but by 
what strange trick of fortune are you here ?” 

“ Oh, it is very simple,” answered Nell with a shy, 
happy laugh, “ there is no miracle at all about it ; do you 
not know that my uncle’s place, Eingwood, lies just be- 
low us to the left ?” 

“ Ah yes, of course : — Sir Eobert Forrester — I remem- 
ber. And you are staying with him ?” 

Nell nodded. “But yon?” she inquired; “your ap- 
pearance here is far more wonderful than mine.” 

“Not so; I too can account for myself being here 
very easily. My old godfather, General Callendar, lives 
down there; whenever I want a little peace and quiet I 
come down here to find it. Just now I want to write a 
book. I have been home in England just three daj's, 
and 1 am going to try and give an account of my 
travels. I have been all through China and Thibet by a 
new route, and then I crossed the Himalayas and came 
down to Srinuggar ; so now, naturally, i Avant to do as 
other travellers in the wilds have done, make money by 
writing down my yarns. I came up here to the woods 
after breakfast to think out my first chapter, and fell 
asleep ; and I have awakened — to find you /” 

“ See what I have been just reading,” cried Nell joy- 
ously, holding up the magazine before him ; “ is it not 
a strange coincidence ?” 

“ Oh, my article on Japan ; I sent it home before I set 


UP IN THE BEECH WOODS. 


329 


off from Pekin on my great journey. It is a dull thing, 
•I think ; I am afraid it must have bored you.” 

“ On the contrary, I have enjoyed it immensely.” 

Meanwhile they were strolling slowly along the upland 
path ; there was asuppressedexcitementin their wordsand 
in their faces, a subtle under current of electricity which 
seemed as it were to enfold them both, yet after the first 
moment of wondering joy their talk was that of two 
acquaintances who meet soberly and in a commonplace 
fashion after an ordinar}^ every-day parting. Did either 
of them recollect at that moment how and where they 
had last met? Did not some vision of that scene of 
horror and confusion, of the flames and the belching 
smoke, of the terror and the death that had been so 
close to them, come betwixt their eyes and the peaceful 
woodland scene around them? Some echo too, per- 
chance, of those few desperate and passionate words of 
love which were the last that had been exchanged 
between them? If so, it is certain that neither of 
them gave any outward indication of these memories. 

“I hope you will enjoy my book more, some day,” 
Temple was saying as they walked, in answer to her last 
remark ; “ it ought to be interesting, for I went over 
some fresh ground where no Englishman has been before. 
If only I can make the telling of it good ” 

“And what about the romance?” cried Nell, with a 
reckless sense of audacity in her happy heart. “ The 
romance, you know, that we were to write together, 
you and I ?” 

He gave her a quick side-long glance, his face flushed, 
for a moment he did not answer. 

“ You know very well that it will never be written 
now,” he answered her gravely, so gravely indeed that 
she looked at him with a vague wonder in her eyes. 

But his face was turned away from her, and he did 
not meet her glance. 

At his heart he thought to himself, “ Why did she say 
that? Women are cruel as death when they know that 
a man loves them !” 

Presently they came to a place where the ways 
parted. He stopped and held out his hand to her. 

“ I fear that here 1 must wish you good-bye,” he said, 
28 * 


330 


A BAD LOT. 


Tvith the studied politeness of an ordinary acquaintance. 
“ My old godfather lunches at one o’clock, and he is a 
veritable dragon of punctuality; it puts him out dread- 
fully if one is late for meals. I — I wish, but I hardly 
know whether I ought to express such a wish — I wish 
that I might be allowed to come and call on you at 
Ringwood to-morrow afternoon. You will say frankly, 
won’t you, if you would rather I did not?” 

There was a wistful pleading look in his eyes which 
she did not quite understand ; he seemed almost as if 
he feared that the not extravagant request might be 
denied. 

“May I come?” he added, with curious timidity. 

“Why not?” she answered confidently and gaily, and 
there was not a shadow of reservation in the clear and 
candid eyes that met his own. 

“ Thanks, then I will,” he said. 

But afterwards, when he had parted with her and was 
going down the winding path towards the white house 
below, he said to himself, “So she has ceased to care! 
Well, it is better for her — and I ought, I suppose, to be 
thankful.” 


CHAPTER XXXYI. 

A GARDEN OF ROSES. 

Nell was out in her aunt’s rose garden, snipping the 
dead heads of the roses off the standard trees. In all 
her life it seemed to her there had never been so fair a 
day. Surely the sky was bluer, the air purer, the birds 
sang more sweetly than they had ever sung before — or 
was it only those glad ringing echoes within her own 
heart that made the world seem to-day to be so beautiful I 

She had dressed herself in a white cotton dress, and a 
wide straw hat, which, if the truth be told, she had been 
busy retrimming all the morning with fresh white mus- 
lin, shaded her happy eyes from the inquisitive rays of 
the sun. On her hands were rough gardening gloves, 
and a basket was upon her arm. 

She had chosen this particular occupation this after- 


A GARDEN OF ROSES. 


331 


noon because the rose-garden lay at the back of the 
house and commanded a view of the pathway leading 
from the wooded hills by which, as being a short cut, 
Julian Temple would assuredly come to Kingwood, and 
as she snipped off the withered, flowers there was a 
dancing music at her heart — the music of joy, which is 
the sweetest music in all the world. 

It was only a week ago since Nell had said to her 
grandmother that her capacity for emotion and for 
happiness was dead and cold, and would never awake 
again. But we never any of us can tell what is the ex- 
tent of the recuperative power within ourselves, or how 
life, in altering itself, may alter us with it. 

For sometimes it happens that we have plodded so 
long through a bare and desolate country, along level 
and dreary roads, that we have learnt to say to our- 
selves despondingly : “ All is over for me ; I have had 
my good days, and have lived my life ; 1 must be con- 
tent now to lay aside all bright colours out of the pic- 
tures of my life, and to put up henceforth with the dull 
greys and drabs of a monotonous and colourless exist- 
ence.” And then, perchance, even as the words are on 
our lips, it comes to pass that the long straight road 
turns unexpectedly ; new scenes open out suddenly before 
us, and a green and lovely land flooded with sunshine 
and gay with gem-like flowers lies spread in front of us. 
And so, in a wonderful way, life takes a fresh start for 
us, and our ways lead us once again into the pleasant 
places we had believed in our evil days to be left behind 
for ever. 

So it had been with Nell Forrester. For so long a time 
her path had been hard and stony, that she had left off 
hoping for better things. But now, all at once, hope 
had come back to her, and with it a light-hearted gaiety 
to which she had been long a stranger. 

She sang a merry little tune to herself over her task, 
and her eyes kept on glancing impatiently towards the 
corner of the shrubbery whence she expected every 
moment to see Julian Temple emerge. 

And she made a very fair picture, standing there 
amongst the cream and crimson roses, whose clusters 
framed in her slender figure with a background of 


332 


A BAD LOT. 


brilliant colour, whilst the sunshine glinted upon her 
shining hair, turning its golden-bronze into fire, and 
fiickered into the happy eyes that were all alight with 
glad and eager expectation. 

But after all, Julian Temple did not come by way of 
the shrubbery, but by the main entrance to the park and 
up the lime-tree avenue, and it was the under-footman 
coming up behind her who announced to her with prosaic 
bluntness the advent of her heart’s lord and king. 

“ A gentleman, miss, as has asked for Lady Forrester,” 
said Thomas, as he held out a card to her on a silver tray. 
“ 1 did not feel quite sure if her ladyship was in, but I’ve 
showed him into the morning-room.” 

The card gave her a chill. She took up the white 
morsel from the tray, and looked at it with a secret 
sense of annoyance and offence. How cold, how formal 
-was this approach ! 

“ Lady Forrester will be coming downstairs to go out 
in her chair in a few minutes,” she said to the footman, 
formally and dully ; “ will you ask the gentleman to come 
out here, please?” 

And presently he was ushered out through one of the 
long French windows on to the lawn. 

They shook hands in an every-day sort of manner, 
and Julian made some commonplace remark upon the 
beauty of the weather. 

Yet his eyes were riveted earnestly upon her. “ She 
looks hap})y,” he thought, radiantly happy, indeed ! 
Well, from the bottom of my heart I am glad of it,” 
and yet he smothered something very like a sigh. And 
he thought that in all his wanderings in foreign lands he 
had never seen a fairer sight than this beautiful English 
woman, with her sweet sensitive face — a rose herself, 
amongst a garden full of roses about her. 

Nell had murmured some half-audible reply to his 
trivial remark, then she turned her face a little awaj^-, 
towards the standard of deep red roses that stood beside 
her. 

And it seemed to him that there was something of 
constraint in her manner. 

“I want so much to hear all your news,” he began 
rather desperately, after a little interval which threat- 


A GARDEN OF ROSES. 


333 


ened to prolong itself into awkwardness ; “ tell me about 
your father and sisters — they are all well at Marshlands, 
I hope? and have your sisters got as many admirers 
now-a-days as they used to have, or have new ones re- 
placed the old set ?” 

Nell was on the point of snipping off a red rosebud 
that was close to her hand. At his words she paused 
abruptly with uplifted scissors, and looked round at him 
with a startled bewilderment in her lovely eyes. 

“ Surely, Mr. Temple, you must have heard that my 
father is dead, and that Marshlands has passed into other 
hands ?” she exclaimed. 

His face became serious at once. “ Indeed, I did not 
know it,” he replied earnestly ; “ I entreat you to forgive 
my thoughtless question. I am indeed grieved. You 
must remember that I have not seen a newspaper nor 
received a letter for over a year. But, your sisters ? I 
really scarcely dare to ask ” 

“ Oh, my sisters are very well, thank you. Dottie 
married Jim Popham — ‘Poppet’ as we used to call him 
— soon after my poor father died. She went out to 
India with her husband, and she is exceedingly happy 
there. Millie is also getting on very well in her own way. 
She has settled in Fenchester.” 

“I am glad they are well,” he said rather absently; 
and then there was another little awkward silence. 

After a few moments, with something apparently of 
an effort, he brought out another question. 

“ And Cecil — he is well, I hope ? Is he at home to- 
day?” 

The basket she held in her hands dropped with a little 
crash to her feet, and all the withered rose leaves fell 
scattered upon the grass between them. 

Cecil!'' she repeated in accents of the profoundost 
amazement. “ Mr. Temple, what do you mean — and — 
and who do you take me for?” 

“ Are you not Cecil Eoscoe’s wife ?” he faltered, his 
own heart beginning to beat with a strange and wonder- 
ful suggestion. And then instantly ho read the answer 
to his question in her glowing face. “My God!” he 
cried, “did you 7iot marry him then, after all? and are 
you Nell Forrester still?” 


334 


A BAD LOT. 


Her low rippling laugh was good to hear. She pulled 
off her rough gardening gloves with a gesture full of 
meaning, and held up her slim left hand before his eyes. 
The fingers were ringless — for Cecil’s diamond engage- 
ment ring had disappeared ; only the brilliants that en- 
circled the tiny watch upon her wrist still glittered and 
shone there as of old in the sunlight. 

For a moment he seemed scarcely able to speak, so 
violent was the revulsion, so sudden the rush of feeling 
from apathy and resignation to the heights of life and 
of hope. 

“ 1 am utterly bewildered ! it seems a miracle ! I have 
heard nothing of all this. Did you break off your en- 
gagement then, after all ? and yet I could swear that 
even since my return some one has told me that Cecil 
Eoscoe was married.” 

“ So he is — but not to me,” she answered gaily. “ Cecil 
married that little heiress, Miss Vincent, whom I believe 
his mother had destined him for all along.” 

“ Then you are free, Nell ? — free ?” 

“ Perfectly free,” she replied drily. “ If freedom be a 
blessing, I undoubtedly am blessed therewith.” 

“ But, Nell, don’t you know then that you are mine !” 
he cried impetuously — “ mine to claim and to hold for 
ever?” And he made as though he would draw her 
towards him, but she held back from him resolutely ; 
yet as he had taken her hand he would not resign it, 
although she struggled to take it away. 

“Look here, Nell,” he pleaded, “do not repulse me 
now! No, I am not going to let you go. Have you 
quite forgotten that night when you and I faced death 
together, through the fiames and the smoke of that 
dreadful fire ? and when I told you that I loved you and 
should love you always, in death or in life ? You did not 
hold back from me then, Nell. No, you cast your dear 
arms about my neck and gave me your sweet lips to 
kiss, and I knew well enough then that you loved me. 
Ah! you cannot undo that moment, Nell; it is mine al- 
ways, and for ever. You can’t have changed since then. 
But, my God 1 it makes me mad to think of the time 
I have wasted away from you — fool that I was to be 
wandering across pathless deserts and over inaccessible 


A GARDEN OF ROSES. 


335 


mountains — courting dangers and longing for a death 
that would not come at my bidding — when all this time I 
might have been at home with you, my darling — safe 
and happy! Was it for my sake, Nell, that you broke 
off your engagement at the last?” 

Perhaps he had spoken too suddenly, perhaps in the 
tumultuous rush of his own feeling he had not suf- 
ficiently borne in mind that love is a shy flower in a 
woman’s heart, and that one who has learnt and suffered 
as Nell had done, needs to be wooed in a soberer fashion ; 
or perhaps it was only that she herself was foolish and 
over-sensitive. Be that as it may, at the sound of his 
passionate words there came over her a terrible sense of 
doubt and uncertainty, and the ring of triumph in his 
exulting voice only struck a cold chill echo into her heart. 

He thinks that he loves me,” she thought ; “ but he 
does not know me. If he knew everything about me, 
would he not turn from me and leave me as Cecil did?” 
And in the anguish of the thought it seemed to her that 
it would be wiser and safer to thrust away this happi- 
ness, that might be no happiness at all — only a direr 
trouble than any that had yet befallen her. Was not a 
man’s love always like this, strong only until it is tried? 
Why should Julian Temple be any different to the others ? 

He would be like the rest; and this time, she said to 
herself, the pain of it would kill her. Yet at least she 
would be honest with him, better far to lose him now, 
and for ever, than that one day he should turn round 
upon her and break her heart by saying to her as Cecil 
had done — “ You deceived me, and I do not believe you !” 

She wrenched her hand out of his, and the red blood 
faded from her face and left her as pale as the white 
dress she wore. 

“ You do not know what you are sa^dng,” she said to 
him coldly and a little brokenly ; it is not in the least as 
you imagine. I did not break off my engagement to 
Cecil. I did not love him, yet I would have gone on 
with it and have married him if he would have had me. 
But he would not. He heard of things against me — 
things that had happened, that I had done long ago — 
that he considered to be shameful and disgraceful, and he 
declined to marry me in consequence.” 


336 


A BAD LOT. 


“ The cur !” he exclaimed with a light laugh ; “ I could 
call him every bad name under the sun, were it not that 
I am so intensely grateful to him, and just at this moment 
so superhumanly happy that I cannot find it in my heart 

to curse him. When we are married, Nell ” and he 

drew near to her again and strove once more to imprison 
her hands, but she flung herself out of his reach almost 
angrily. 

“Don’t you understand,” she cried, “or must I make 
it plainer still to you? If I was not fit to be Cecil lios- 
coe’s wife, how can I be fit to be yours ? I must not, I 
cannot marry you. Be my best friend if you will, but I 
— I care for you too much to bring disgrace upon you,” 
and her voice broke into a sob. 

“ My dear little Nell, don’t be foolish,” he said then 
gravely, and yet so gently and tenderly, that the wild 
rebellious sjDirit within her became all at once soothed 
and softened ; “ I don’t think you seem to understand 
me very well either. Do you know why I rushed oft' to 
the other side of the world in such a desperate hurry, 
dear ? and why I have prolonged my absence all these 
long months, going into all sorts of uncomfortable and 
savage countries which I really had not the slightest de- 
sire to visit? It was only just because of you, child, 
because I could not stay in England to see you become 
another man’s wife, because I felt that I could not 
breathe the air of the same world that gave you to Cecil. 
I told you once, did I not ? that I had never loved any 
woman till I met you. Well, it is true enough ; women 
all bored me and wearied me. Till I met you I was 
never attracted to one of your sex for longer than a day. 
It is said that men who have no experience of love are 
those who take the complaint the worst when they are 
knocked over at last. I can honestly aftirm that it has 
been so in my case. I have suffered horribly on your 
account, Nell. I was desperately bad for a time, and, 
although when I came back to England the other day, I 
had become numbed and hardened by the pain, so that I 
did not feel it so badly as at first, yet I never for one mo- 
ment believed myself to be really cured. I was always 
certain that I should carry the hurt of it down to my 
grave. Yesterday, when 1 opened my eyes and saw you 


A GARDEN OF ROSES. 


337 


standing near me, up there in the woods, the old mad- 
ness all came back upon me in a moment, although I 
thought you were Cecil’s wife. Had I not been so cer- 
tain by the light in your eyes that you were happy with 
him and had forgotten me, I should not have dared to 
come and see you to-day. Hell, do you suppose a man 
who loves you in this fashion is going to be put off by 
these little trumpery things that you are prating about? 
My dear girl, a man who knows the world as I do has a 
little more certainty about his own mind in such a mat- 
ter than you seem to give him credit for.” 

“ But,” she persisted obstinately, although happiness 
had begun to steal back shyly into her heart at his 
words — for she said to herself that this time, and with 
this man, she would be absolutely open and sincere — 
“ but you don’t know. I cannot allow you to deceive 
yourself. I must tell what it was — it was not a trump- 
ery thing at all, I was only sixteen — but I ought to 
have known better, it seems — I got myself talked about 

— I did things that compromised my name ” 

He cut short her confessions impatiently. 

“ My dear child, you went about unchaperoned with 
Colonel Yane Harley — a blackguard of the first water, I 
grant you, and more shame to him to have taken ad- 
vantage of your youth and inexperience. You went, I 
believe, on several occasions on his yacht, and were un- 
lucky enough to be seen with him by an ill-natured, evil- 
tongued woman, who made the most of the situation. 
There is the whole story, is it not ?” 

“ You know all this !” she exclaimed, her eyes opening 
wide in amazement. “How on earth do you know? 
Who told you about it all ?” 

“ I heard a good deal of it from Cecil in the first in- 
stance, and I guessed the rest,” he answered, smiling 
into her astonished eyes. “ Hid you not tell me your- 
self that you had been on board a yacht? Then again, 
I was with Cecil when he went to Wimpole Street, to 
pump your grandmother about the story.” 

“ But she put him off — she told him a cruel lie about 
it. He went away believing that it was Hottie,” 

“ I did not go away believing it was Hottie in the 
least, my dear. I was perfectly well aware that the old 


p 


29 


V) 


338 


A BAD LOT. 


lady was romancing. I can put two and two together 
quite as well as most people, Nell.” 

“ And you have known all this all along, and yet you 
do not despise me? Do you know also, then, that Yane 
Darley wanted me to run away with him ? and do you 
know, too, that he is dead now, and that I went to see 
him, and forgave him, when he was dying? Can you 
learn this also, and still believe that I am fit to be your 
wife ?” 

“ My dear child, I can even hear all this unmoved. I 
am not Cecil Eoscoe. I know you for what you are, 
Nell; and not the worst things that you can say about 
yourself could ever make me think you anything but 
the best and sweetest and dearest girl on earth. Besides 
which, I love you, Nell. I love you so much that, 
frankly, I don’t care a brass farthing what you may 
have done half a dozen years ago, so long only as you 
will tell me that you love me now, and will stick to me 
for the rest of your life, and give me — and to me. only 
— the right of guarding you from all evil and from all 
slanderous words for evermore. Give me that rosebud, 
Nell — that happy rosebud which is kissing your sweet 
face, and of which I am feeling sadly envious ! Give it 
to me, darling, and with it, give me — will you not — your 
dear self?” 

With a shy smile, she lifted her eyes to his, as she laid 
the red rosebud with which she had been idly playing, 
together with her trembling fingers, into the warm 
grasp of his strong brown hands. 

“No one,” she said, with a little break in her voice — 
as, regardless of the many-windowed house behind them, 
he drew her passionately to his heart — “no one can be 
loved better than that. You take me for granted, 
Julian; and yet, have you remembered that the world 
will be sure to tell you that evil comes to us Forresters 
by right of birth, and that you are marrying one of a 
bad race ?” 

“ And what do we care about the world — you and I, 
Nell! Leave all that half-hearted sort of thing to the 
Cecil Eoscoes ! Love seems to me to be a much better 
and nobler thing than most men are willing to make of 
it ; that is why so many people, I thinks miss the secret 


A GARDEN OF ROSES. 


339 


of true happiness. To me, Nell, you are the one woman 
on earth 1 have ever loved. Whatever you have done 
in the past (and I dare swear you have done nothing 
very fearful !) and whatever you may choose to do in 
the future (which I am content to leave in full faith in 
your hands), cannot alter or do away with that fact, 
can it ? — the fact that, with all my soul and understand- 
ing as a reasonable man, as well as with all my heart as 
a fervid lover, I believe in you, and worship you — and 
you only, in all the world.” 

And then for a few moments there was silence between 
them — a hushed silence that was too deep and too full 
for words — until a sudden crunching sound of wheels 
along the gravel path behind them recalled them once 
more to the things of earth. 

Lady Forrester’s bath-chair was advancing steadily 
towards them. 

“ It is Granny !” said Nell in a startled whisper, as she 
withdrew herself quickly, laughing a little and blushing 
very much, from Julian’s encircling arms. “ Granny, 
who is, by the way, the person you came to call upon, 
I believe.” 

“ Your grandmother ! No, indeed, I did not know she 
was here. I meant to inquire for your aunt.” 

Lady Forrester was close upon them. 

“Hallo I” she cried, putting up her long-handled 
glasses scrutinizingly at them.' “Why, whom have we 
here? Oh, surely I have seen this gentleman before, 
although I do not seem to recollect your name, sir.” 

“ It is Mr. Temple, Granny,” said Nell consciously, 
going round to the other side of the chair and busying 
herself nervously with the cushions at the old lady’s 
back. The servant who had been wheeling the chair 
withdrew ; the little group stood there in the sunshine. 
Lady Forrester looked sharply from one to the other. 

“ Oh, yes, to be sure. I remember you now,” she said 
acidly and somewhat vindictively. “ You are the gentle- 
man who came with Cecil Roscoe to bear witness to any- 
thing I might happen to let fall against the character of 
my granddaughter, are you not ?” 

“ Grandmamma I” cried Nell indignantly. 

“ I hope you will cease to believe that I did anything 


340 


A BAD LOT, 


of the kind, Lady Forrester,’^ said Temple rather 
warmly, “ when I tell you that 1 have just been asking 
Miss Forrester to be my wife.” 

“Well, she won’t, then,” answered the old woman de- 
cisively and promptly, entering into the joke at once, as 
she threw a keen glance up into her favourite grand- 
child’s face j “ I can give you her answer at once, sir. 
Nell won’t marry anybody but one particular man, she 
told me so only the other day, and that man unfortu- 
nately does not want her in the very least.” And then 
she looked quickly from one to the other, with a twinkle 
of merriment in her small screwed-up eyes and with a 
little air of triumph, as though to say, “There! what do 
you make of that, pray ?” 

“ The man has changed his mind, Granny,” said Nell 
demurely; “he has found out that he does want me, 
after all.” 

“He has not changed his mind in the least. Lady 
Forrester,” amended Julian Temple, laughing. “As it 
happens, he has always wanted her — always, since the 
very first moment he ever set eyes upon her.” 

“ Oh !” said Lady Forrester drily. “ Nell, my dear,” 
turning to her granddaughter, “ is this gentleman aware 
that you are an exceedingly bad girl ?” 

“ Perfectly, Granny. And he says he likes me all the 
better for it,” answered Nell, meeting her lover’s eyes 
with a smile across the top of the old lady’s poke bonnet. 


THE END. 


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derful way. ‘ Aunt Johnnie’ is as bright and amusing a story as 
any that she has written, and it rattles on from the first chapter to 
the la.st with unabated gaj^ety and vigor. * The hero and heroine are 
both charming, and the frisky matron who gives the story its name 
is a capitally managed character. The novel is exactly suited to 
the season, and is sure to be very popular .” — Charleston News and 
Courier. 


The Other Man’s Wife. 

i2mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. 

“The hero and heroine have a charm which is really unusual in 
these hackneyed personages, for they are most attractive and whole- 
some types. Indeed, wholesomeness may be said to be the most 
notable characteristic of this author’s work.” — N. Y. Telegram. 

Only Human. 

i2nio. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. 

“ A bright and interesting story. . . . Its pathos and humor are 
of the same admirable quality that is found in all the other novels 
by this author .” — Boston Gazette. 


J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia 








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